iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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University of Exeter Special Collections @exeterunispeccoll.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Good morning to everyone, but especially to all the manatees, for today is their special day! This illustration of a manatee comes from 'Animated Nature' (1828) by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. 📷 Reserve 590 BUF #InternationalManateeDay #ManateeDay #RareBooks

Cropped image from a book, showing a colour illustration of a manatee, lying on its side on sandy-coloured ground, next to a body of water. It looks exhausted and bit fed up!

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Dr Laura Eastlake @victorianmasc.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

📚"Covers designed by folk who didn't bother to read the book" Episode 2: Henry James, 'The Turn of the Screw' (1898) The novel is a #C19th gothic tale of a governess caring for 2 cherubic children who may or may not be in league with ghosts. Also...that's a nut.

Blue cover featuring two spanners (wrenches if you prefer) tussling oddly over a nut. There are no screws in this image. Not one.

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Dr Laura Eastlake @victorianmasc.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Looking at illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson. I have questions about this one. (1903)

Illustration of a woman, with characteristic 'Gibson Girl' updo, carrying a serving tray. Lying on the serving tray, steaming as if recently removed from the oven, but otherwise smiling and unperturbed, is a small cherubic child with wings and legs in the air.

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Dr Suzy J Styles @suzyjstyles.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

Once a year I ask my students to imagine a red star. It’s cognitive psychology and we are about to talk about whether “imagery” is the same or different from “perception”, but first, I like to check in on what our class experience when we imagine something. Friends, the results NEVER disappoint!

A digital pinboard showing six options. Ranging from 1. Nothing. 2. A vague outline with no/barely any colour. To 5. A vivid red star and 6. Something more elaborate. 35 people respond as “imagers” (Options 4-6). 6 people show aphantasia (Options 1-2), with one person selecting ‘nothing’.

In the comments section for “nothing”, someone has asked “hello one friend. How do you imagine things?” The reply says “I think of concepts (weepy-face) can’t see things in my mind”

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Dinah Roe @preraphsrule.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Celebrate Pancake Day with Christina Rossetti's 'Mix a pancake', illustrated by Arthur Hughes.

Mix a pancake,
Stir a pancake,
Pop it in the pan;
Fry the pancake,
Toss the pancake, —
Catch it if you can.

Illustration is a woman tossing a pancake in the air while a child watches from each side.

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Andrea Hart @andreahart.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Currently prepping these wooden beauties for a new display on Richard Owen’s science, art and legacy going into the NHM’s Images of Nature gallery tomorrow! #woodengraving #megatherium #bones #specialcollections

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Jim Stokes @jimstokes.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

One can begin to understand why cats (even big ones) don't like the water. Stories and Pictures of Animals c1890s #BookologyThursday #booksky

Alligator snapping head of large tiger at the river's edge

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Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Ladybird book in the spotlight Sleeping Beauty (1965) Artist: Eric Winter

Front cover illustration of the book, showing sleeping beauty in a butter-yellow silk dress draped on a pink bed with the old lady dressed rather like a witch spinning behind the bed

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Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

That feeling when you are ready to swap your first-born for a really crisp lettuce (Rapunzel, 1968) Artist: Eric Winter

A woman in 18th century costume looks out of a casement window at the garden of her neighbour and looks longingly at the salad

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Beth Gaskell @bethgaskell.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Today’s #MastheadMonday is the Pen and Pencil (1855). It aimed to tap into several fashions that coalesced in the mid C19th: illustrated newspapers, cheap family papers, & the Crimean War. It lasted only 8 issues. Digitised by the BL & free to view: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/pen-a...

Masthead of the Pen and Pencil: An Illustrated Family Newspaper. The title is given in simple block capitals. This is volume one, number one, for Saturday 10th February 1855. The price was six pence.

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Emily Herring @emilyherring.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

I can already hear the tech bros calling me a luddite: here it is with no paywall I think app.theneweuropean.co.uk/story/133185...

app.theneweuropean.co.uk

AI art lacks real creativity

Using artificial intelligence to generate images that mimic artworks robs humanity of one of the most meaningful experiences of all

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Illustration Archive @profjt.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Have you ever thought about what you see — or don’t see — in your mind’s eye as you read? Take a look at this piece I’ve written about reading and aphantasia: www.tes.com/magazine/tea...

tes.com

Aphantasia: education’s blind spot in teaching reading

What is it like to learn to read when you can’t make mental pictures? It’s an issue more educators should be aware of, argues Professor Julia Thomas

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Patrick Leary @patrickleary.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

The Guardian has published an obituary of my dear friend Brian, written by his wife Maxine. I love the photo she chose for it. www.theguardian.com/education/20... #C19

theguardian.com

Brian Maidment obituary

Other lives: Academic expert on downmarket illustrated books, prints and ephemera of Georgian and Victorian eras

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Illustration Archive @profjt.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

This recommendation is a career highlight (I have a new book out, by the way!)

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National Endowment for the Humanities @nehgov.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

There are so many ways to use artificial intelligence (AI) in the humanities. This NEH-funded collaboration between the University of Wyoming and Cardiff University in Wales used AI to preserve more than 3,000 images of 22 medieval cathedrals at high resolutions. ow.ly/PS0T50V0qAB

ow.ly

Building on Cathedrals: AI Brings Medieval Architecture to Life

An innovative project led by Professor Julia Thomas is transforming how we explore and preserve medieval architectural heritage.

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Research Society for Victorian Periodicals @rs4vp.org · 06/02/2025

For those who may not yet have heard, our dear friend Brian Maidment passed away a little over a week ago. It is difficult to put into words how much he meant to our community, but @pritijoshi.bsky.social has paid him wonderful tribute here: rs4vp.org/in-memoriam-...

rs4vp.org

In Memoriam: Remembering Brian Maidment – RSVP

A tribute from RSVP president Priti Joshi to past president and long-time member, Brian Maidment, who passed away January 28, 2025.

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Jason B Jones @jbj.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

This (typo) is literally the dream, not an inconvenience

Sign at 216Mass that reads “Elevator is temporally out of order” and in small print “sorry for the inconvenience”

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Nina Antonia @ninaantonia13.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Jimmy Page's Zodiac Dining Table in his Arts & Crafts home, Tower House, London, designed by William Burges.

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Illustration Archive @profjt.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

All our AI tools for searching the content of digitised image collections are free and available now via the website. Please use! findingaplace.org.uk?page_id=285

findingaplace.org.uk

Resources – findingaplace.org.uk

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Publication day! *Literary Illusions* is finally out!

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Illustration Archive @profjt.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

For those interested in AI and historical images (and cathedrals), here is a lovely exhibition of the work we’ve been doing with @lampallib.bsky.social shorturl.at/0gTgn

shorturl.at

Building on Cathedrals

AI-Driven Insights into Architectural Heritage

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Maria Damkjær @mdamkjaer.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

My book, Fiction on the Page in Nineteenth-Century Magazines, is out now with Oxford University Press! academic.oup.com/book/58989 It’s a book about page fillers, product placement, and strange hybrid fiction. It asks how the page of the magazine became a spur for new, odd genres.

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Illustration Archive @profjt.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Everyone has to see a ghost on Christmas Eve. Here’s one, just in case. From The Ingoldsby Legends (designed by John Leech). Available on The Illustration Archive

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Illustration Archive @profjt.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Mr Pickwick under the mistletoe (Phiz) farm8.staticflickr.com/7390/1128770...

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Illustration Archive @profjt.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Contrary to popular mythology, there were quite a few red-robed Father Christmases pre-Coca Cola. This one is from 1888. illustrationarchive.cf.ac.uk/image/11195180743

illustrationarchive.cf.ac.uk

Old Father Christmas. Picture-Book

Old Father Christmas. Picture-Book 0

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Chris Louttit @drchrislouttit.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

One for the publication day of Dickens's A Christmas Carol: 'The Last of the Spirits - A Scene from A Christmas Carol at the Adelphi Theatre', published in The Pictorial Times, 2 March 1844.

A faceless spirit in a dark, hooded cloak points at a kneeling man dressed in night clothes

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Patrick Leary @patrickleary.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Curran Fellowships are now open for applications (due Jan 15, letters Jan 22), and they can be a big help to anyone researching any aspect of the 19th-c. British press. Topics pursued by past winners have ranged far and wide: rs4vp.org/awards/curra... Details here: rs4vp.org/awards/curra... #19th

rs4vp.org

The Curran Fellowships – RSVP

The Curran Fellowships are travel and research grants intended to aid scholars studying British magazines and newspapers from the long nineteenth century in making use of primary print and archival so...

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Illustration Archive @profjt.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Dear followers, old and new. Here is one of my favourite illustrations (by Frederick Sandys). I’m interested in all things Victorian, books, pictures — and (life after) death/consciousness

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Dr Bill Hughes (William the Bloody) @billbloodyhughes.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

Fabulous illustration for one of the most haunting figures in European folklore. He plays a very scary role in the book I'm currently rereading and working on: Maggie Stiefvater's Ballad. 'Herne the Hunter' English folklore ghost with hounds and owl, by George Cruikshank, 1843.

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