Today I am turning the spotlight on fromoldbooks.org. It is a wonderful website where you can find tons of old illustrations and other fragments from long forgotten books of the past.
“From Old Books” is run by a gentleman named Liam Quin. He has been collecting old books for years. At some point Liam decided to share some beautiful illustrations with the online audience. Out of that grew his current website. What a treat for the rest of us, right? It works for me!
Most images are in the public domain and ready for your use. The image below entitled “Star of Bethlehem” is one example of what you will find there.
Expect to be delighted with pages of text, hand drawn lettering, old book plates, black and white drawings and much more.
When it comes to color, you will find some truly beautiful antique images like this one. Images that would have remained inside their dusty book jackets were it not for the vision and generosity of one man.
They don’t make books like this any more with the old inks that are so colorful and vibrant. Most of the images at From Old Books are not in color, but you will still find a few very nice ones.
If you don’t want to labor at exploring the site, there is a random generator on the first page. Use it and just about any part from an old book will pop up. Now what could be easier than that?
One last thing. Apparently this project has proven quite an undertaking. If you would like to help defray costs with your PayPal account, you may use one of the “make a donation” buttons.
Thank you Liam for the wonderful work you are doing. And thank you for bringing us color from the past so that we might get a chance to view books the way they used to be.
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