Ah, the number of times we ourselves have been saved by a mirror.  From Love-Clouds by John Latey, 1894.

"A mirror doubles the scene, confirming what is at first hard to make out and then hard to believe." —Peter Schjeldahl, The 7 Days Art Columns, 1988-1990

Our illustration appears in St. Nicholas magazine, 1912.

From A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages by Thomas Wright and illustrated by Frederick William Fairholt, 1862.

"I conducted her to the chamber, and bade her look intently on the polished mirror of the wall," from The Sphinx-like Head by J. Harry Sugden, 1896.

An illustration from an 1867 issue of Punch magazine.

Prof. Oddfellow gazes into the obsidian mirror at the Witchcraft Museum in Boscastle, England.  What the mirror revealed is a subject for another time.

The last non-deceiving mirror was manufactured in 1835, just before German chemist Justus von Liebig developed a process for silvering the rear surface of glass.  No silvered mirror's reflection can be trusted; only polished discs of bronze or copper or small glass mirrors backed by lead, tin, or antimony neither flatter nor deceive.

The lost art of mirror dipping, from The Saturday Evening Post (1914).  The caption reads: "'One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six — Dip!' said Mrs. Drum, and did it."

An illustration from an 1887 issue of Frank Leslie's Pleasant Hours magazine.

We learn in the BBC series The Mighty Boosh that "there are over seventeen mirrors in the mirror world."  We find a precursor in The Century of Louis XIV by Frances Cashel Hoey, 1896.

An illustration from Etidorhpa, or The Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of the Initiate's Remarkable Journey by John Uri Lloyd (1895).  The caption reads: "A mirror was thrust beneath my gaze."

An illustration from an 1895 issue of The Windsor magazine.

An illustration from a 1914 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "She leaned forward as if hypnotized and stared at her reflected image.  'I will look,' she whispered hoarsely, 'until those eyes stop glaring like that!'"

An illustration from a 1903 issue of Life magazine.  The caption reads: "Hallowe'en and candle-light.  Show me my true love to-night."

An illustration from an 1890 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "I think his satanic majesty himself sends a special messenger sometimes to preside over a woman's toilet."

Dedicated to Teresa Burritt.

An illustration from a 1904 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "Murray had seen the vision too."

An illustration from an 1888 issue of Scribner's magazine.