Here's a precursor to our world of misinformation, from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain.

Here's a precursor to the Teletubbies, from a camera advertisement in The Pharmaceutical Era, 1887.

From Lavengro; The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest by George Henry Borrow, 1896.  The caption reads, "There is nothing like flinging the bones!"

Here's a precursor to Australian absurdist pantomime performer Grahame Bond (of "Aunty Jack" fame), from A Series of Original Portraits and Caricature Etchings by John Kay, 1877.

Heraldic animals do not have rights, but the inhumane treatment of heraldic animals is inconsistent with armorial morality.  [Or something.]  Our illustration of an apparent heraldic animal farm appears in Berlin Under the New Empire by Henry Vizetelly, 1879.

"Why, to shuck peas" ... because the who, what, where, when, and how of shucking peas are self-evident.  From The King's Own by Frederick Marryat and illustrated by Frederick Henry Townsend, 1896.

The "Tomte Gubbe," or old man of the homestead, from Peasant Life in Sweden by Llewellyn Lloyd, 1870.

The idiom "wearing two [or many] hats" has been traced back to the Civil Service in 1950s England, though we know it actually goes back at least to 1884's A History of the Cries of London, Ancient and Modern by Charles Hindley.

We recall Charles Fort's marvelous theory that we the so-called living are actually ghosts.

"As she spoke, she dashed the contents of the water-jug she held ... right into the dark corner by the clock."  From The Duchess Lass by Caroline Masters, 1896.

From Robert Greene: His Life and Works by Nikolai Storozhenko, 1881.

An illustration from a 1900 issue of The Lady's Realm magazine.  The caption reads: "Something appeared at the window."

From The Silence of Dean Maitland by Maxwell Gray, 1896.

Masquers from The National and Domestic History of England by William Hickman Smith Aubrey, 1878.

An illustration from a 1900 issue of The Lady's Realm magazine.

Here's a precursor to that Fawlty Towers scene about life in California: "You can swim and sunbathe, and then after lunch, drive up into the mountains and ski."  From Roughing It by Mark Twain.

From Southerly Busters by Ironbark, 1878.

An illustration from A Journey Round the World by Carl Marr (1888).