Museum of Wonders, or Curiosities of the World

A cabinet of curiosities in book form, 1890: monsters of the ancient world, wild animals, queer wanderers in the vasty deep, famous inventions and sublime scenery — assembled to astonish the young and, the preface admits, their elders too.

About the Book

1900Published
(verify title page)Author
394Wonders
466Pages on this site

Museum of Wonders was published in 1890 to “afford entertainment and instruction to the young” — a compendium of everything its compilers found marvellous, from prehistoric monsters and exotic animals to famous inventions, great buildings and thrilling scenes of adventure.

Books like this were the popular science and travel writing of their day, and they are a good record of what the nineteenth century found astonishing.

Its descriptions of other peoples belong to their era; where the text carries period racial language it is left exactly as printed, with an editor's note.

This digital edition is built from a dual-engine OCR, reconciled page by page, with the original engravings.

This site reproduces the complete text of the original 1900 edition, digitized page by page from the original printing. The book is in the public domain.

Rights & ReuseThe complete text of Museum of Wonders (1900) is in the public domain in the United States — like all works published before 1928 — and is free to read, download, quote, teach from, and reuse. This digital edition (its transcription, restored images, and site design) is © 2026 PhotoOpAI, and any editorial commentary we add is clearly marked as ours; the underlying public-domain text carries no such restriction.