I recently had the good luck to buy some newspapers from 1879. There are some interesting stories that I plan to publish in the coming months. The first is about Thomas Edison's invention of the light bulb. Below you will find an extract of the full text which can be read in the photographs below.

Extract from The Graphic Illustrated Weekly Newspaper 1st March 1879

"Full particulars of Mr. Edison's long-talked-of patent have at last been published, and however the advocates of electric lighting may be disappointed, the holders of gas shares may be congratulated on the undoubted fact that the mountain has produced such a very small mouse....

....It is difficult to imagine how Mr. Edison can seriously propose to gain his ends by such a machine as this...... It is merely a new form of the long-ago patented means of producing light by the incandescence of a substance which offers high resistance to the current. Mr. Edison uses an alloy of platinum and iridium, which, in the form of a ribbon, he places between two suitable holders. The current is regulated by the expansion of this ribbon with the heat evolved, and it is by this means checked automatically before the fusing point of the alloy is reached......

It seems, therefore, that the subject of electric lighting has not, as yet, made much progress in his hands."