Literary Fantastic

July 29, 2005 8:16 AM

The Fantastic in Art and Fiction. The Cornell Institute for Digital Collections presents an online image-bank that "provides a visual resource for the study of the Fantastic or of the supernatural in fiction and in art" from the danse macabre to medical oddities to creatures straight out of Hell (and Heaven). The university's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections has put together a captivating little collection of the marvelous, the mysterious and the magical. You can search through all the images at once or search by book title. (Some images may be slightly NSFW.)
posted by LeeJay (15 comments total)

Cool - great post. I think I used to live in this building.
posted by Staggering Jack at 8:27 AM on July 29, 2005

LeeJay-This is truly an excellent post. You should have saved it for next monday. I like this skeletorch. I have a feeling you'll be seeing some of this stuff in any exquisite corpses I make.
posted by OmieWise at 8:32 AM on July 29, 2005

This is really great - I loves me a good danse macabre. In gratitude, here's a bonus little macabre guy - from Baltimore, no less.
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:44 AM on July 29, 2005

Very neat stuff. I think this is a great site to look at with some cool pictures. If you like this genre of material and are ever in NYC, check out my favorite antiques shop that carries material like this along with medical oddities, etc. They had a two headed cow for a while and antique death masks from syphilis victims. A very cool place that is fun just to wander around and look at what they have in this week. And every so often, you find that must have item. It is also a place were celebrities with odd tastes shop, so you never know...
posted by nyc stories at 8:45 AM on July 29, 2005

Thanks LeeJay I'll have a look over the weekend.
Synchronicity though - I just posted news of Cornell's Joyce exhibition to a JJ mail group. It's of course part of the Rare & Manuscripts collection (and is currently on show) - listed in this week's Scout Report.
posted by peacay at 9:02 AM on July 29, 2005

very nice
posted by brevator at 9:05 AM on July 29, 2005

Nice content, shame about the navigation.
posted by signal at 9:14 AM on July 29, 2005

Nice content, shame about the navigation.

Yeah, the navigation is a bit awkward. I can see why they broke it up the way they did but it could have been accomplished in a more functional way.
posted by LeeJay at 9:36 AM on July 29, 2005

Great site. Thanks.
posted by Kafkaesque at 9:48 AM on July 29, 2005

Nice find. Thanks.
posted by safetyfork at 9:50 AM on July 29, 2005

Oh, man: bookmarked. Thanks, LeeJay.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 10:01 AM on July 29, 2005

hail, all hail cornell!
posted by Kifer85 at 10:46 AM on July 29, 2005

Neato keen! Great post, thanks.
posted by scody at 11:32 AM on July 29, 2005

Totally bookmarked, LeeJay, and a truly great find. This image really gets me.
posted by melissa may at 6:31 PM on July 29, 2005

Is it just me, or does this woman have anime hair?
posted by Citizen Premier at 9:08 AM on July 30, 2005