This book answers its own rhetorical question in its frontispiece.  From Whither? by M. E. Francis, 1893.

This fairy on a bunny appears in a book entitled Yachts and Yachting, by Frederic Schiller Cozzens (1887), which proves that one really needs no excuse to work in bunny-riding fairies.  This should also be of interest: How to Believe in Your Elf.

"'Call it a hunch.'  'That's about all you can call it.'"
—Jayne Ann Krentz, Deep Waters

How can you tell that these letters are for a newscaster?  Because they spell out ANCHORMAN BILLETS.  (The answer is in black text on a black background.  Highlight to view.)

Lady Luck reigns from within a horseshoe, as we see in Pariserliv i Firserne by Richard Kaufmann, 1885.

"Lucy gave way for a short time to the memory pictures which floated before her mental vision," from Thrilling Life Stories for the Masses, 1892.

An illustration from an 1883 issue of The Quiver magazine.  The caption reads: "He was suddenly seized with the most awful terrors."

Here's a precursor to Harpo Marx under the bed in 1929's The Cocoanuts, from Too Clever by Half by John Lang, 1878.

"Mesmerized skull," from Illustrated Descriptive Price-List of Magical Apparatus and Illusions, 1884.

You've seen the cliché of a frustrated writer tossing away page after crumpled page, but here's one tossing the ink, too.  From Colorado College Nugget yearbook, 1909.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

From Blasts from The Ram's Horn, 1902.

"I see in one glance—one sharp, quick glance—TWO FIENDS ALWAYS NEAR YOU, urging you on to murder!"  From Thrilling Life Stories for the Masses, 1892.

From The Funny Side of Physic by Addison Darre Crabtre, 1874.

From Information Regarding Knitted Suits by James McCreery, 1890.

"She got up and staggered towards an old mirror."  (If you ask us, there's no better way to approach an old mirror than to stagger.)  From The Dove's Nest and Other Tales, 1886.

Q: Why do photographers love windows?

A: Every window [is] crushed between two frames of time. —William Keckler

"No account of Piccadilly is complete which leaves the goat out of the picture, an unexpected rural figure in the foreground."  From The Great Streets of the World, 1892.

Note the sideways A in the caption above the story's title.  From Thrilling Life Stories for the Masses, 1892.

Here's a precursor to the haunted bendy door in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, from Ladies' Home Journal, 1948.

From the Works of Charles Dickens, New Illustrated Library Edition.