Edward Brooke-Hitching @foxtosser Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

@foxtosser

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Author of The Most Interesting Book in the World (Oct '24), Madman's Library (Times Lit Book of the Year)... QI Elfing veteran. RGS Fellow. @CCampbell_Agent

London, UK.

https://t.co/OZCJ0DFX8Y

Joined April 2009

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@foxtosser

Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 month

Clear the chickens off the runway because here it comes! A colossus of the most curious history, science, + everything peculiar, The Most Interesting Book in the World arrives October (Simon & Schuster). For everyone everywhere interested in anything...

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@foxtosser

Edward Brooke-Hitching

6 months

A little love story - Edward James, patron of the surrealists, was so besotted with his wife, the dancer Tilly Losch, that when he saw the trail of wet footprints she left up the stairs after her bath at Monkton House, he had them woven into the carpet.

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

2 years

16th-century portrait thought to be of Hungarian nobleman Gregor Baci, who was impaled with a lance during a tournament. He lived for another YEAR with the sawn-off piece lodged in his head (The white paint was likely made of zinc oxide, which would have helped prevent infection)

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

6 months

If you like these kinds of little nuggets, check out Love: Curious History:

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Love; A Curious History

Love; A Curious History

www.amazon.co.uk

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

Volume #474839 of the Madman’s Library - a custom prayer-book pistol made for Francesco Morisini. Duke of Venice (1619-1694). Tug the silk bookmark to fire while the book is closed!

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

2 years

Enter The Madman's Gallery and discover the strangest art in history. From the bestselling author of The Phantom Atlas, and The Madman's Gallery - Times Literature Book of the Year.

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The Madman's Gallery: The Strangest Paintings, Sculptures and Other Curiosities From the History of...

The Madman's Gallery: The Strangest Paintings, Sculptures and Other Curiosities From the History of Art

www.amazon.co.uk

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

So here’s a thing: yesterday I went to find Hell. The small church of St Peter and St Paul’s is in the village of Chaldon, Surrey. It’s in the Domesday Book (1085) but seems to have existed in wooden form as early as 675. Inside is something utterly breathtaking...

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

6 months

@eastlake_e Haha possibly so

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

Screaming sculptures, magical manuscripts, impossible architecture, flying monks... Discover the stories behind some of the most curious artworks in history

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

7 years

Good lord. The Chief Constable in charge of combatting UK knife crime is called Alfred Hitchcock

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

2 years

The Moche civilisation of northern Peru (flourished c.100-800) believed the ground to be fertilised by these living zombie cadavers in the underworld, who could yank their cranks to produce great quantities of semen to feed the living earth #halloweencostume

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

Happy birthday Terry Pratchett, ye gods are you missed. I'm still discovering how many wildly obscure historical references there are in his Discworld books that he disguised with parody. What a purely funny, ingenious man.

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

@jrawson This all boils down to her misunderstanding the phrase 'share the screen'

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

@PFTompkins Ooh, that's an antique Death's Head watch, an antique memento mori popular since Mary Queen of Scots. Nice bit of symbolism.

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

5 years ago an unidentified idiot dressed as a Yeoman Warder to revive a proud April Fool's tradition dating back to 1698, handing out invitations to the public to attend the annual 'Washing of the Lions' ceremony at the Tower of London. (Then armed security arrived) #AprilFools

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

The famous portrait of Federico da Montefeltro (1422-82). Ever wondered about his distinctive nose? He lost an eye and broke his nose in tournament accidents. Paranoid of assassination attempts, he had a surgeon remove a section of his nasal bridge to improve his field of view

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

2 years

Find this and more of history's strangest paintings here!

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The Madman's Gallery: The Strangest Paintings, Sculptures and Other Curiosities From the History of...

The Madman's Gallery: The Strangest Paintings, Sculptures and Other Curiosities From the History of Art

www.amazon.co.uk

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

6 years

Princess Khutulun (1260-1306), a cousin of Kublai Khan, is described by Polo as a superb warrior. She'd only consent to marriage if the suitor would wrestle her. If he won they'd marry, if he lost he'd forfeit his horse. When she died, she was unmarried and owned 10,000 horses.

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

In 1869, the church rector, Rev. Henry Shepherd, was supervising the lime-washing of the interior walls when he noticed colour coming through, and immediately called for the work to stop. They uncovered this enormous fresco, whitewashed over at some point in the 17th century…

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

2 years

The Meat-Shaped Stone is the most celebrated treasure in the collection of Taiwan's National Palace Musem. A piece of jasper carved to resemble a slab of Djongo pork belly marinated in soy sauce, made sometime in the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). God I'm hungry

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

FOREVER SUNSETS - Venus rotates so slowly that you could stroll across its surface at the same speed as the Sun passes through its sky. This means - in the words of astrobiologist David Grinspoon - "you could watch the sunset forever just by walking."

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

The flower-crowned skull alleged to be that of Saint Valentine, in the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome, Italy.

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

1852 painting by William Powell Frith, showing the disastrous moment the poet Alexander Pope declared his love to Lady Mary Montagu, causing her to roar with laughter

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

Both Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots were said to have memento mori Death's Head pocket watches. This is a c.1800 silver example, only 3cm in size with accompanying skull chain. (CCing the Grim Peepers @DrLindseyFitz and @LibraryatNight )

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

The late Japanese street photographer Kuwabara Kineo described his method as releasing the shutter "at the very moment when the matching of spirit causes a scattering of sparks"

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

So here’s a curious #maps related story. One of the few cities to have ever been completely planned out before construction is Zion, in Illinois, USA, founded in 1901. What's more, it's designed in the style of the Union Jack. It gets stranger... (1/16)

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

To celebrate The Madman's Library named @thesundaytimes Literary Book of the Year, #win a signed, fully loaded "Loot Copy" of the book worth £400! To enter, RT and follow @foxtosser . 1 winner will be picked at random. #Giveaway closes midnight 17/12/20. #Competition open to all!

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

Here are some more photos I took. The fresco is a whopping 17ft by 11ft, in fiery red ochre. It shows the Ladder of Salvation of the Human Soul, as well as Purgatory, and the basement of Hell with demons engaged in some especially gruesome tortures…

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

@jrawson Someone at Netflix just sat bolt upright in their chair

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

It looms over you. The effect is overwhelming, and more than a little terrifying. It’s thought to be the work of a travelling artist-monk well versed in Greek ecclesiastical art…

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

@Sotherans Japanese have the a word for this: "arigata-meiwaku" - the feeling you have when someone does you a favour you didn't want them to do, and which might have caused you trouble, but you have to act grateful anyway.

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

@IanPlayfair @simonschusterUK @CCampbell_Agent Celestial maps are arguably the most beautiful and criminally overlooked of all charts and can be simply jaw-dropping, like this Coronelli chart of the universe of 1690 (generously provided by @BarryRuderman at )

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

It’s terrific. I went there for research reasons, but I highly recommend visiting and supporting the church!

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

Happy birthday to THE SKY ATLAS, published today! () An illustrated history of cosmic myth and discovery. It is BEAUTIFUL, and it is STRANGE. Here are some of my favourite things from inside...

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

In Case of Emergency: EAT THIS BOOK. For those wanting to devour a good book, see the 2012 desert survival guide designed for Land Rover's Dubai customers, made from edible paper and ink with "a nutritional value close to that of a cheeseburger." (From )

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

Futurist inventor Meredith Wooldridge Thring riding his electric stair-climbing carriage, and centipede walking machine. He also made a robot that cleared the dinner table

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

GANGSTER MAP - This pictorial chart from 1931 (the year Capone was jailed) maps out Chicago's gangland territories and activities, with a helpful dictionary of slang terms. "Sing a song of Gangsters, Pockets Full of Dough, Four-and-Twenty Bottles, Make a Case You Know."

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

"The Hairy Blue Register" of the Court of Holland, a record of government roles between 1518–40. The unusual binding is a cow hide of thick hair, making it easily locatable on the shelf, and extremely pettable. For thousands more similarly strange books...

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

11 months

Hit your weekend with the same exuberance as Marcel Leyat designing his 1921 Helica propellor car, once clocked at 106mph. No mesh in front of the giant blades - apparently the potential gore shower from shredding stray pedestrians/pigeons not a huge cause for concern

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

Do YOU live in the Upper Mesopotamia region of c.500-700 CE? Are YOU suffering from unwanted demons in the house? Then call now for your own magically inscibed incantation bowl or 'devil-trap bowl', to place upside down on the floor to snare the blighters

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

Sent this off today. THE MADMAN’S LIBRARY, the ultimate book for book-lovers. Fully illustrated. Books that kill, edible books, books bound in human skin + written in blood, spell books, contracts with the Devil, books worn in battle, and many more... Out in October! Can't wait

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

Robert Fludd's 1607 vision of the void of pre-Creation, a drawing of endless nothingness, marked on each side 'Et sic in infinitum' - And so on infinitely. Happy hump day.

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

First image of a black hole is about to be released live, drop what you’re doing, this is historic

@ABC

ABC News

5 years

International consortium of scientists expected to release first ever photos of a black hole.

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

THE SKY ATLAS - The Greatest Maps, Myths and Discoveries of the Universe. A beautifully illustrated history of cosmic imagination and exploration. Published 17th October, available to preorder now! #newbook #booklovers #books

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

7 years

Just look at the armour of the Winged Hussars, 16th-18th century Polish cavalry. Stunningly beautiful, probably terrifying on the field

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

2 years

@DrLindseyFitz Cheerier?

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

2 years

The Moche civilisation of northern Peru (flourished c.100-800) believed the ground to be fertilised by these living zombie cadavers in the underworld, who could yank their cranks to produce great quantities of semen to feed the living earth #halloweencostume

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

The great thing about #maps is they're great for escaping from current worries with something completely different. So in that spirit here's a fun 1944 map of all the OTHER diseases you could catch around the world...

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

Everyone losing their minds over the Sam Smith video with the "water fountain" bit, but to me it looks like a nod to The Miraculous Lactation of Saint Bernard by Alonso Cano 1645-52........right?

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

The merman gargoyle at the Palácio da Pena absolutely does not wipe down the machines after working on his lats to System of a Down

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736-83) spent the last years of his lfe obsessed with sculpting his series of 'character heads'. He believed spirits tortured him with pain at night for discovering (and recording with the heads) a secret link between the face and parts of the body

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

6 months

All hail the Penis Tree, created in 1265 but only discovered in 1999 in the Italian town of Massa Marittima. It's thought the female figures are witches, knocking the phallic fruit from the trees and collecting them in baskets for later

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

7 months

LOOK at this unbelievably beautiful 19th-cent golden hand-painted bookcase, now home with me after some luck at a Cotswolds auction. Even decorated side panels! Half expected to find a Ripley scroll hidden inside

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

America - The Madman's Library is out today! The strangest books and manuscripts from history in a book of over 400 illustrations...

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

The elephant that never was - a proposed Parisian structure to celebrate the end of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1748, by Charles-François Ribart. Louis XV stands atop a colossal elephant, inside which are various decorated rooms.

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

The first copy of THE DEVIL'S ATLAS has arrived and it is stunning, with crimson foil adding a sinister glint. A history of how we've mapped, measured and explored the Afterlife, arriving 14 October!

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

Love this story from current issue of @CandSCmagazine . Car restorer buys rundown Mode T, realises black paint covering something. Discovers graffiti by a group of friends in 1950s Mount Hope, Wisconsin, who would ride around town getting into mischief. “JUMP IN BABY I WONT BITE”

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

6 years

Spent a hot day at auction picking up more books that people tell me I’m mad to collect - Set of Piranese’s drawings of imaginary prisons; 7 vols of Victorian slang; and a Georgian guide to tormenting your spouse. Will they up in value? Nooo. Do they make my heart SING? You bet

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

6 years

A gleaming advance copy of Golden Atlas arrived this morning. Many thanks @IanPlayfair , it’s absolutely stunning!

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

8 years

The Phantom Atlas is out 3rd November... An atlas of the world as it never existed.

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

The beautiful Copiale cipher manuscript, written in the 1730s but only cracked in 2011. It was revealed to be the work of a German secret society called the "High Enlightened Oculist Order of Wolfenbüttel", and details their initiation rites, which included eyebrow plucking

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

Death's coat of arms, from an early sixteenth-century German heraldry manuscript in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries. Something for Terry Pratchett fans! (From )

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

REMINDER: 2.59 today would be a great time to ask your family if they've seen the news about the massive asteroid

@HuddlestonNigel

Nigel Huddleston MP

@HuddlestonNigel

1 year

REMINDER: The UK Emergency Alert Test will take place at 3pm TODAY. You will receive a message on the screen of your mobile phone, along with a sound and vibration for up to 10 seconds.

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 months

Married an ugly Belgian? Fear not! Take your spouse to the Baker of Eeklo (here by Cornelis van Dalem in 16th cent.) where he'll give them a magical glow-up by decapitating them, temporarily replacing their head with a cabbage, while he reshapes the head in the oven

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

@clmazin @alexvtunzelmann Sadly a hoax!

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Was a Couple Arrested for Selling Golden Tickets to Heaven?

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

The first image of a planet taken from deep space was MADE BY HAND. When Mariner 4 made its historic flyby of Mars on 14-15 July 1965, it sent home the first close-up pictures of the Martian surface. The team couldn't wait for their computers to process the image data, so... 1/2

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

It has arrived... THE DEVIL'S ATLAS is out! How we've mapped, measured, painted and explored the Afterlife. Underworlds, paradises, limbos, demon parliaments and cosmic roosters, with a ridiculous 400 illustrations #newbook #booklovers #FolkloreThursday

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

Funny how you can see something truly disturbing on an antiques hunt and immediately think “I bet @DrLindseyFitz would love it”

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

It's the wound of Christ, get your minds out of the gutter. From the Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg, Duchess of Normandy before 1349. Attributed to Jean Le Noir

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

Look times are tough right now so wouldn't it great to know how to find buried treasure by summoning a demon? (Caveat: said demon WILL seize your accomplice and piss on your lamp.) Check out The Madman's Library, out Thursday!

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

Toppling the Colston statue has done more teaching of history in a day than the statue itself did for over a hundred years

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

Hieronymus "go-big-or-go-home" Brunschwig showing writers how to make a STRONG start with a title page in 1525

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

10 months

Reading about how Beethoven found his brother Nikolaus irritating and a bit of dunce which seems a bit harsh, until you see this portrait of Nikolaus. Does this not look like the most comically irritating dunce you could ever meet

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

There are SO MANY great stories hidden on maps. Here's one about the Victorian inventor of the human cannonball act, who discovered a lost city while becoming the first white man to cross the Kalahari desert with his male companion Lulu. 1/8

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

Currently at auction, this Folsom Prison mugshot book from 1914-1919! Hoping there's $2500 somewhere in my sofa cushions...

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

6 years

A whole bunch of newly signed Phantom Atlases at the gorgeous @Foyles Charing Cross Rd!

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

Happy Dante Day! The PERFECT time to reveal the amazing cover of my next book THE DEVIL’S ATLAS, an illustrated journey through the afterlife beliefs of cultures around the world. Out October 28 with @simonschusterUK ! @CCampbell_Agent

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

A+ dedication to April Fools right here - each term translates to gullible

@AdamCSharp

Adam Sharp

1 year

This is a thread of some of my favourite literal translations from languages around the world, starting with this one… In Bengali, the word for a penis, অতিসরল, translates literally to “tyranny trunk”

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

2 years

QI Elfing basically involves spending all day reading obscure old books to find one or two suitably interesting things in the most farflung areas, only to find we already covered those things ten years ago

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

6 years

A judicial duel between a man and a woman, 15th-century Germany. For fairness the man stood in a hole, which he's currently regretting (from )

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

@JuliaHB1 @languagegeek64 In August...

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

2 years

See also The Jade Cabbage in the same collection, a Chinese cabbage head with the details of a locust and katydid hidden in the leaves

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

8 years

The Gallery of Maps in the Vatican, commissioned in 1580 by Pope Gregory XIII. Almost too beautiful to bear, isn't it?

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

Quite amazingly The Madman's Library has been chosen as a @BBCRadio4 Book of the Week 🤯. Extracts will be broadcast every day 12th-17th July. Thrilled, grateful, baffled...

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BBC Radio 4 - The Madman's Library by Edward Brooke-Hitching

Edward Brooke-Hitching's father was an antiquarian book dealer. So began his fascination.

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

Interior of a Kitchen (1815) by Martin Dröllin, a seemingly innocuous domestic scene. The remarkably thick tarry shadows were produced using the pigment mommia, or mummy brown, made by grinding up the dessicated corpses of ancient Egyptians

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

2 years

@DrLindseyFitz Ooh I haaaate this. I got accused of copying a Wikipedia page, and had the satisfaction of pointing out the page quoted my book as its source

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

7 years

The mythical island of Wak-Wak was said to have a tree that produced screaming humanoid fruit. Mapped here on the Tabular Rogeriana (1154)

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

6 years

Maria Sibylla Merian, one of the earliest independent women explorers, published her gorgeous depictions of South American wildlife in 1719. Here's her illustration of a caiman wrestling a snake #InternationalWomensDay

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

10 months

@HistoryToLearn No, it's men having fun with a ski-jump at Alexandra Palace, London, England, in 1933.

Met de slee van de springschans / Sleigh leaving ski-jump

Nationaal Archief / Spaarnestad Photo, SFA008001002 Man springt met slee van een springschans, Alexandra Palace, Londen, Engeland, 1933. Sleigh leaving ski-jump. Alexandra Palace, London, England,...

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

11 months

How did you weigh a jockey in the nineteenth century? In STYLE. Few antiques more adorable than Avery scales seats...

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

4 years

From cut-out confessions to cheese pages: browse the world's strangest books

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

5 years

William Dampier, explorer-pirate - first to circumnavigate the globe 3 times, first Englishman to step foot on and explore Australia. Also introduced over 1,000 words to English language like chopsticks, barbecue, soy sauce, thundercloud and tortilla. For more...amzn.eu/d/5JW6H0G

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

Chilling that the Pied Piper of Hamelin has its origins in a real, mysterious catastrophe in Hamelin. It's not known what happened to the young that were lost, but the earliest record in the town chronicles of 1384 states: "It is 100 years since our children left."

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

2 years

Gadzooks the THE MADMAN'S GALLERY looks *stunning*. The greatest curiosities in the history of art - cannibal portraits, flying monks, underwater art, paintings by artificial intelligence, AND the werewolf legion of the Roman Empire. Available to preorder!

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

9 years

God I love ostrich riding photos http://t.co/EbK4VW0o3X

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

The Madman's Library is today the Sunday Times Literary Book of the Year, which is quite amazing, totally undeserved, and impossible to beat in the future...

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

6 years

Need a present for someone who loves old maps? (Also works well for someone you hate who hates old maps)

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

Have just handed in MS of new book - "Love: A Curious History in 50 Objects" - which turned out even better than I'd hoped! Phew! Out in October...

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

3 years

This beautiful study by Laura Knight (surely her most beautiful?) sold today at auction. Never before seen, as it was kept by the sitter. Controversial at the time, it being a nude woman painted by a woman. Ye gods, gentlemen, just conceive of such a thing!

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

1 year

Behold, the magnificent Penis Tree, a 5m-high mural discovered in 2000, at a fountain built in 1264 in Massa Marittima, Italy. Five black birds hover over a group of women - witches? - hitting the phallic fruit out of the tree with sticks and stuffing it into jugs

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Edward Brooke-Hitching

2 years

Spare a thought for this poor author whose book came out on 16 October 2021

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