Well, I would say the British Library (and Microsoft, who did the scanning) has given us an interesting, little Christmas gift. The library has posted over one million images from the pages of 17th, 18th, and 19th century books in their collection! The images fall into many categories (maps, adverts, portraits, etc.) and are posted on Flickr Commons, which means they're in the Public Domain.
Below is but one example from the cache: an illustration from Monsieur At Home by Albert Rhodes, published by Field & Tuer, London, 1885. It's quite...uh, phat, right?
Enjoy!
