Spectacles of Light
The Magic Lantern as Popular Entertainment, 1810-1930
Collective
(0 vote)Average rating:
| 0 | rating |  = We can do without |
| 0 | rating |  = Good book |
| 0 | rating |  = Excellent book |
| 0 | rating |  = Unique / a reference |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
From fairgrounds to lecture halls, cabarets to classrooms, the magic lantern cast its glow across the modern world. Long before cinema, this versatile projection device captivated audiences with dazzling images, dramatic storytelling, and immersive spectacle. At once a scientific tool, a medium of persuasion, and a form of mass entertainment, the lantern became central to the making of modern visual culture. This book explores the magic lantern’s extraordinary role in shaping popular performance and entertainment in the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. Bringing together leading scholars from across disciplines, its chapters follow itinerant showmen, professional lecturers, and theatrical illusionists as they built audiences across Europe, North America, and Australia, forging connections that made the lantern a truly international medium. Spectacles of Light completes the trilogy on the magic lantern in the Media Performance Histories series, shifting focus from religion and education to the vibrant worlds of entertainment.
> On a related topic:
Popular Visual Shows 1800–1914 (2025)
Picturegoing from Peep Shows to Film
by Joe Kember and John Plunkett
Subject: History of Cinema
The Human Shutter (2024)
Photographs, Stereoscopic Depth, and Moving Images
Subject: History of Cinema
The Story of Victorian Film (2023)
by Bryony Dixon, Mark Duguid and Patrick Russell
Subject: History of Cinema
The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures (2023)
A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and the Movies
by Paul Fischer
Subject: History of Cinema
The Emergence of Pre-Cinema (2018)
Print Culture and the Optical Toy of the Literary Imagination
Subject: History of Cinema
The Great Art Of Light And Shadow (2000)
Archaeology of the Cinema
by Laurent Mannoni and Richard Crangle
Subject: History of Cinema
Lumière et mouvement (1996)
Incunables de l'image animée, 1420-1896
Collective
(in English, Italian and French)
Subject: History of Cinema
Marey, Muybridge, pionniers du cinéma (1996)
Rencontre Beaune / Stanford
Collective
(in French and English)
Subject: History of Cinema
Back
