Ten Thousand Wonderful Things

Edmund Fillingham King, Editor. Ten Thousand Wonderful Things: Comprising Whatever is Marvellous and Rare, Curious, Eccentric, and Extraordinary in All Ages and Nations, Enriched with Hundreds of Authentic Illustrations. (London: John Routledge & Sons, 1860).

"A Book of Wonders requires but a brief introduction. Our title-page tells its own tale and forms the best exposition of the contents of the volume. . . We trust it is needless to say that we have closed our pages against everything that can be considered objectionable in its tendency."

The volume contains a 4-page index to engravings and an 8-page index to subjects for a total of 684 pages plus four pages of publisher's advertisements (wherein I first discovered The Boy's Playbook of Science by John Henry Pepper, to be the subject of a forthcoming chapter of Biblio-Dots).

POPULAR AMUSEMENTS IN 1743: Rope-dancing, tumbling, vaulting, equilibres, ladder-dancing and balancing. . . likewise the extraordinary performance imitating the lark, thrush, blackbird, goldfinch, canary-bird, flageolet, and German Flute. . . everyone will be admitted for a pint of wine as usual.

THE CUPID OF THE HINDOOS: Presented riding on a parrot.

INTERESTING AND FANCIFUL RELIQUE: Presented by Mary, Queen of Scots to George Gordon, fourth Earl of Huntley. Consists of a lock of Mary's hair attached to a small ivory skull which is connected by a twisted skein of silk to the figure of a Cupid shooting an arrow.

This book is available on the Internet Archive if you would like to explore it more for yourself.

I will close with one additional wonderful thing. While trying to find information on the editor, Edmund Fillingham King, I discovered a site called Folk Art In Bottles. The link will take you to their gallery of miniature ships in light bulbs!

What's This?

Welcome to my new blog called Biblio Dots. Old or odd books and their illustrations will be the focus. I have many interesting volumes that I hope to share here. I may also revisit some of my favorite periodicals as well. Posts will be open for comments and encouragement!

Remember that you can click on the page scans and enlarge them with the magnifying glass for an easier read.