“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.”

Herman Melville, Moby Dick, ch. CIV.

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Below: Robert Hooke, Micrographia (London, 1665), fold-out plate of a flea. View Hooke’s Micrographia in its entirety in the Collections’ image galleries.