“They brought me in to a white-bearded bald old fellow who was lying on a worn Turkoman carpet in front of a half-dead fire. He had a book beside him, a catalogue of his railroad bridges, and he held a pen between his toes. He used his magnificent, sleepy, burgundy-and-gold-colored hunting dogs… as pillows and rugs.”
— Swan Lake (1989), text by Mark Helprin and illustrations by Chris Van Allsburg
Three Dogs by William Elstob Marshall, in which they each deny having opened the letter.
This is from 1921, in which a bootlegger’s cargo was disguised as a load of bricks. Probably a police photo, but wouldn’t it be fun if it was in a catalog from which bootleggers could select the ideal vehicle for their operation?
Frontispiece from Within the Law, illustration by William Charles Cooke.
A page from The Leaning Girl by François Schuiten and Benoit Peeters.
From The Englishman Who Posted Himself and Other Curious Objects (2010) by John Tingey, a mailing using a “publicity stamp” as part of the address. The addressee was G. Forster, a dentist who used the stamps to publicize his practice, and also the cousin of Reginald Bray, the above-referenced Englishman who delighted in sending cryptic postcards. At this time, such stamps were also popular in Germany.
