It always amazes me that there is a regular and consistent market for framed patent drawings from bygone years. I wonder if it is a fascination with technical drawings, or perhaps just a sense of nostalgic escape from our modern technology-filled world. Perhaps it would even explain the rise of the concept of “steam punk” over the last few decades. I mention this only because I recently stumbled across the novel “The Difference Engine,” which is a collaboration between William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. I am unfamiliar with the writings of Sterling but this seems to me to be a big departure form Gibson’s usual mind-bending, cerebral work.

Anyhow, this prompted me to resurrect the patent drawing of George Stephenson’s Locomotive nearly 200 years ago, which I have tidied up a bit.

~Richard

A Story – The Steampunk Moonlander

This is a rare find indeed! Discovered recently in a box of ephemera left as part of an eccentric recluse’s estate in Wensleydale, England, this is thought to be one of the fabled photographs that captured the largely apocryphal adventures of her forebear, Theophilus Carter.

Although Theophilus ostensibly made his living as a cabinet maker in Victorian Oxford, he was also of sufficient means to indulge his passion as an enthusiastic inventor. His initial setbacks with his more modest invention, the Alarm Clock Bed, first shown publicly at the Great Exhibition in 1851 met with such muted response that he was forced to continue his future activities hidden from public scrutiny through fear of criticism. In fact, such was his modesty that little is known of his later development of the steam space engine and his subsequent solo return trip to the moon in 1898.

He was blessed with sufficient foresight, however to carry photographic equipment with him on this adventure and I am pleased to be able to share with the public at large this remarkable image of the lunar surface, with waxing Earth and “The Brunel” rocket in the foreground.