This book is a great reproduction of a mail order catalog from Peck & Snyder for the year 1886.
This surprisingly thick, more than 300 pgs, densely illustrated, catalog is a wonderful look at the amazing quantity of "stuff" available by mail in the US of the late 19th c.

From the introduction;
"This book is a secret attic on a rainy day, a gentle reminder of the days when baseball was two words and a bicycle was $12.50. Whatever these days were like, they could boast Peck & Snyder's Electro Radiant Megascopes, ventilated lunch satchels,nose amputation knives, battery operated scarf pins, electric sleeve buttons and magic bolognas."

Title
Nineteenth Century Games & Sporting Goods
American Historical Catalog Collection
Peck & Snyder
1886

Author
Peck & Snyder (their staff presumably)

Publisher
The Pyne Press
Princeton

Date
1886
Re-print 1971

ISBN:0-87861-094-4

Keep your sight glass full and your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

This book is a biography of Edward Lawson Moss MD, A Royal Navy Surgeon on the last great British north polar expedition of the nineteenth century. Compiled by Paul Appleton from Moss' own letters this book chronicles his travels in the Caribbean, the Arctic, and on Canada's Pacific coast (he created one of the first medical establishments on the coast at Esquimalt). He died at the young age of 38 when the HMS Atalanta was lost on the way to Bermuda in 1880.

A fascinating look at a very interesting man, he could have been a model for Patrick Obrien's iconic doctor Steven Maturin.

This book is published by the University of Calgary as part of their Northern Lights series. It includes lots of maps and photographs as well as 15 watercolour plates by Dr. Moss himself.

Highly recommended.

Title
Resurrecting Dr. Moss
The life and letters of a Royal Navy Surgeon,
Edward Lawton Moss MD, RN, 1843-1880

Author
Paul C. Appleton

Publisher
University of Calgary Press

Date
2008

ISBN:978-1-55238-232-5

Keep your sightglass full and your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Forwarded to me by my brother.
Thanks Ross!
Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ
===============
From: Marcus Rowland
To: wheeze-l
Sent: Sat, Feb 4, 2012 09:53:23 MST
Subject: [WZL] Sir Howard Vincent's Police Code - Resource for Victorian / Edwardian gaming


I've put the complete text of Sir Howard Vincent's Police Code on my
web site. It's the 15th (1912) edition of a compact guide to law,
conduct, etc. for London policeman, by the man who founded Scotland
Yard's CID (Criminal Investigation Department). It was used as a
reference by all of the UK's police forces, and adapted to many
Commonwealth forces. It should be useful to anyone researching or
writing about the UK police or gaming in this period, and much of it
undoubtedly applies to British police forces from the Victorian era
well into the 1920s-30s. To make it easier to use I've adapted the
index which now has several THOUSAND links to entries, and put several
hundred links into the text.

POLICE CODE AND GENERAL MANUAL OF THE CRIMINAL LAW BY SIR HOWARD VINCENT, K.C.M.G., C.B. FIFTEENTH EDITION. 1912

I've had a lot of help correcting this, but undoubtedly some OCR and
formatting errors etc. remain, if you spot anything that looks wrong
please let me know.

--
Marcus L. Rowland
www.forgottenfutures.com
www.forgottenfutures.co.uk

Stephen Hunt, author of Court of the Air wrote an article for TOR books in Oct 2010:
The Great Steampunk Timeline by Stephen Hunt

In this article he included a timeline of literary and social events in which the Steampunk movement that we know has evolved.

Click here for his timeline.


From the article:

But look where steampunk accelerates, look where it starts to take wing. It’s the buildup of millennial angst towards the dawning of the new century. You know the one, the century that should have been the Age of Aquarius—the end of history, the death of faith, the dawn of super-science, and our long march towards Singularity.

Instead, the boiler was lit. Not by the gentle hand of a stoker measuring out spadefuls of coal, but with all the violent ignition of a multi-stage Apollo rocket: wars, terrorism, global warming, bird flu, crime, hoodies knifing granny, economic shock after economic shock. Careers and industries withering under the force of technological innovation, the internet upturning lives with the force of a superstorm.

And this, gentle reader, is the real whip cracking above steampunk’s hansom cab.

Steampunk isn’t true Victoriana. It’s not five-year-olds crying as they were shoved starving up chimneys; it’s not having to have seven children so you can watch five of them die from pandemics before the age of ten. It’s not a decade of pain from a crumbling tooth because you’re living in an age where cutting-edge dentistry means a long swig of whisky and a short pair of pliers.

It’s faux Victoriana. It’s elegant smoking jackets and flounced petticoats rather than two quid jogging bottoms from Lidl. It’s manners and wit rather than trash-talking curses. It’s understanding and stripping and rebuilding your gadgets, rather than trading in yesterday’s iPhone for tomorrow’s Google Nexus One. It’s comfortable tweed and refined salons, rather than a punch-up in Cardiff City centre because you disrespected some moron by watching him vomit for two seconds too long.

That’s how you understand steampunk.

Indeed Stephen, indeed!

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Some videos showing the Steampunk scene.







Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

A fascinating blog filled with stories taken directly from Victorian newspapers.
Enjoy!
Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed an your water iced
KJ

An Extraordinary Incident is a collection of news stories from Victorian publications (and a few earlier ones). It features the unusual, the amusing, the macabre, the tragic and the hair-raising. You’ll find accounts of daredevil aeronautics, dastardly crimes, encounters with wild beasts and all manner of pith-helmeted heroics. All the stories were printed in real newspapers but that, of course, is no guarantee of their veracity. They are presented verbatim for your interest and enjoyment.

An example from the The Dundee Courier and Argus, Tuesday 7 June 1898

An unusual spectacle in the air
THE LADY AND THE PARACHUTE

EXCITING BALLOON ADVENTURE

Miss Maud Brookes ascended in a balloon from Trafford Park, Manchester, the other evening with the intention of descending by means of a parachute in the neighbourhood, but on reaching an altitude which she estimated at 9000 feet she got into a current which would not permit of her descent. She was carried gradually higher, until she encountered a cloud and hailstorm. She did not under the circumstances attempt to use the parachute for about twenty minutes, and meanwhile she was carried across country. She then left the balloon for the parachute in the hope of rapidly descending, but the force of the current carried her along to Oldham. The unusual spectacle in the air attracted the attention of thousands of spectators. The parachute gradually descended, until it collided with the warehouse of Phoenix Mill, Brunswick Street, situated about the centre of town. A couple of young men ran to Miss Brookes’s assistance, and seized her as she was about to touch the earth, and thus saved her from serious personal injury. Miss Brookes was taken to the Central Fire Station, and was provided with refreshment. In reply to inquiries, she stated that she had sustained slight injury to the back of her head and an abrasion of one of her elbows, but was otherwise unhurt. The balloon is supposed to have travelled in the neighbourhood of the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Behold the Air Kraken!

Here are some old photos of Air Kraken in action:

Mark your calendars because March 17th is Air Kraken Day!
Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and a good lookout!
KJ