Restoring the Lost Sense

"Black Ladies": an illustration from A History of Tong, Shropshire by George Griffiths of Weston under Lizard (1894).

"Do you wear pants?"  From A Ramble Round the Globe by Baron Dewar (1894).

An illustration from The Revelations of a Sprite by Auber Melville Jackson (1897).  The caption reads: "'Hum,' said the owl."

"Are we to descend?"  An illustration from The Secret of the Court by Frank Frankfort Moore (1895).

An illustration from Le Louvre et Son Histoire by Albert Babeau (1895).

"Terror": an illustration from Otto of the Silver Hand, written and illustrated by Howard Pyle (1888).

The title page to Robert Greene's "Groundwork to Coney Catching," reproduced in The Highway of Letters by Thomas Archer (1893).

"Hell mouth," from Bygone Warwickshire by William Andrews (1893).

An illustration from Bill Nye's History of the United States (1894).  The caption reads: "Opening of the witch-hunting season."

An illustration from At the Rising of the Moon by Frank James Mathew (1893).  The caption reads: "Dark Andy and the headless man."

What was the Vitruvian Man's animal familiar?  You guessed it — the Vitruvian Giraffe.  (Our illustration is from Artful Anticks by Oliver Herford, 1894).

An illustration from A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder by James De Mille (1888).  The caption reads: "'This,' said Layelah, 'is the way we have of escaping.'"

An illustration from Bill Nye's History of the United States (1894).  The caption reads: "Oil the gearing of the solar system."

An illustration from The Dawn of the XIXth Centruy in England (1886).  The caption reads: "Theatrical doctors recovering Clara's notes."

An illustration from Mr. Midshipman Easy by Frederick Marryat (1896).  The caption reads: "Mr. Easy was busy with a plaster cast of a human head."

An illustration from The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith (1888).  The caption reads: "'Now,' cried I, holding up my children, 'now let the flames burn on, and all my possessions perish.'"

An illustration from an 1881 issue of The Quiver magazine.  The caption reads: "I find such quantities of strange toys about the house."

A spirit photograph is made even eerier by blocking out the faces of the sitters from the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, vol. 16 (1922).  The caption reads: "The photograph by Mrs. Deane. (Faces of sitters obliterated.)"