You've heard of magic dust, woofle dust, pixie dust, fairy dust, and foo foo powder, but these aren't mere figures of speech, as we see in the Catalogue of Sharp & Smith, 1889, p. 670 — a genuine magic atomizer.

"The butter flies," from Virginia Illustrated by David Hunter Strother, 1857.

"'You are making phantoms to frighten yourself with,' he exclaimed."  From A Neglected Privilege by Maggie Swan, 1896.

An illustration from An African Millionaire by Grant Allen (1897).  The caption reads: "Césarine returned with a full, true, and particular list."

An illustration from Shafts from an Eastern Quiver by Charles Jodrell Mansford (1894).  The caption reads: "Within the transparent rock we saw the form of a woman."

"The sea had always possessed my thoughts": an illustration by Austin Osman Spare for Behind the Veil by Ethel Wheeler (1906).

From London Bridge to Lombardy by a Mmacadamised Route by W. R. Richardson, 1869.

An illustration from The Nightingale Dished Up on China Plates by Richard Andre (1899).

An illustration from Around the World on a Bicycle by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1887).  The caption reads: "A Quarry of Startled Dears."

Here's a precursor to James and the Giant Peach, from The Oxford Thackeray.

Which is funnier: a mastodon or a pterodactyl?

Clue: This is according to absurdist playwright N. F. Simpson.

Answer: pterodactyl (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)

Citation: N. F. Simpson, One-Way Pendulum. In Simpson's original version, the protagonists' daughter had changed herself into a mastodon on a whim, but in his film adaptation, Simpson revised the mastodon to a pterodactyl.

"Ventilating engines, commonly used at close ends in metal mines," from Frost and Fire by John Francis Campbell, 1867.

"The heart of the typhoon," from A Diplomatist's Wife in Japan by Mary Crawford Fraser, 1899.

An illustration from A Century of Ballads by John Ashton (1887).

An illustration from Humorous Poems by Thomas Hood (1893).  The caption reads: "He saw a sailor mixing his grog."

"Look at your hands to dream lucidly."  [For Gordon Meyer.]

"Jimmy and his friends discover the jewelled skeleton," from An Ocean Outlaw by Hugh Saint Leger, 1897.

Write a novel about a geneticist who discovers the secret of cellular immortality.  And she makes a cat immortal.  Then she destroys her notes.  And nobody can figure out how she made the cat immortal for another seven hundred years.  Maybe she was going through a bad breakup at the time and took it out on humanity.  Or she just didn't have much hope for people. —William Keckler