From Cousin Tom by William Turville, 1897.

From The Penman's Art Journal, 1890.

"A man-trap and the skeleton of a man," from Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

"'What an abominable day!' I said crossly, by way of pleasantly opening the conversation."  From As In a Looking Glass by Francis Charles Philips, 1889.

The harvest fairies from New Pictures in Old Frames by Gertrude M. Bradley, 1894.  This should also be of interest: How to Believe in Your Elf.

From Confessions of a Caricaturist by Oliver Herford, 1917.

There is a "time of awkward silences," as Suzanne Brockmann has noted in Tall, Dark and Dangerous.  Our illustration appears in St. Nicholas magazine, 1898.

"And he felt so well only just now!"  From Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

"I converse with them at least fours hours every day," from Gulliver's Travels, via Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

From The Pink Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, 1897.

It seems that Horace Scudder compiled fables from A to ... well, from A to Æ, as it turned out.  But as Hannah Arendt reminds us, the "absolute lies in the very act of beginning itself."

"O Queen of Earth and Heaven!  O Peerless among Women, the dreaded day hath dawned!"  From The Eye of Istar by William Le Queux, 1897.

"A puzzle for the Devil," from Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

"The sorceress divines Faustine's fortune by poisoning a young slave girl," from Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

Here's a drop of beer magnified, from The World's Temperance Reciter by Joseph Malins, 1890.

Early models of the "bicycle built for two" betrayed a hierarchy of wealth and power.  From St. Nicholas magazine, 1877.

"He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me."  From Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, via Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

From The Pink Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, 1897.

From Purdue University's Debris yearbook, 1902.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.