Spectacles of Light

The Magic Lantern as Popular Entertainment, 1810-1930

Leen Engelen, Evelien Jonckheere, Eleonora Paklons, Kurt Vanhoutte (eds)

Pages: 332 p.
Size:178 x 254 mm
Illustrations:54 b/w, 46 col.

Language(s):English
Publication Year:2026

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ISBN: 978-2-503-62220-0
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Spectacles of Light explores the magic lantern's extraordinary role in shaping popular performance and entertainment in the nineteenth and into the twentieth century.

Subject(s)

BIO

Kurt Vanhoutte is professor of theatre and performance at the University of Antwerp. He was the central coordinator and spokesperson of B-magic, an Excellence of Science Project (2018-2025) on the cultural impact of the magic lantern. His research explores the intersections of performative culture, illusionism and media technology since the nineteenth century.

Eleonora Paklons is a historian specializing in the history of knowledge, performance, and representation. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Antwerp, where her research explores the representation of place in magic lantern travelogues from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Previously, she contributed to the B-Magic project, conducting archival research into the what, who, and where of magic lantern performances in Belgium.

Evelien Jonckheere obtained a PhD in Art History with research on popular culture in the Belgian Fin de Siècle and worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the B-magic project at the University of Antwerp. Since January 2025, she has been the curator of the Museum Huis van Alijn in Ghent.

Leen Engelen is a film- and media historian based in Belgium. She teaches at LUCA School of Arts (KU Leuven) in the international MA programs FilmMemory and DocNomads. She was previously a researcher on the B-Magic project at the University of Antwerp. Her current research focuses on nineteenth-century visual and immersive media, cinema cultures, archives and decolonial approaches.

Summary

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.

Spectacles of Light explores the magic lantern’s extraordinary role in shaping popular performance and entertainment in the ninteenth and into the twentieth century. Bringing together leading scholars from across disciplines, the volume traces how lantern shows blurred boundaries between science and magic, education and amusement, faith and politics. 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.

This book 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. Rich in case studies and international in scope, it restores the lantern to its rightful place as a defining force in the history of popular entertainment and modern media.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Eleonora Paklons (University of Antwerp) and Kurt Vanhoutte (University of Antwerp), Projecting the Popular

Lessons in Light: The Magic Lantern between Education and Entertainment
Joe Kember (University of Exeter), The ‘Popular’ Element in Lectures: The Ambivalence of the ‘Rational Recreation’ 1820–1920 and Development of the Lantern Lecture
John Plunkett (University of Exeter), On the Road Again: Benjamin Malden and the Professional Lantern Lecturer
Sabine Lenk (Phillips University Marburg), The Ellemberg Family, or How to ‘Edutain’ the Masses
Ludwig Vogl-Bienek (Phillips University Marburg) and Yvonne Zimmermann (Philipps University Marburg), Paul and Minna Hoffmann’s ‘Great Shows’: Performative Configurations of the Art of Projection for Entertainment and the Popular Transfer of Knowledge

The Travelling Lantern: Transnational Mobility and Cross-Cultural Circulation
Kornélia Deres (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest), A Central European Magic Professor: Dissolving Views, Stage Magic, and other Lantern Practices by Ludwig Döbler
Daniel Pitarch (Estampa), Following Señor Laschott: Theatrical Dissolving View Shows in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Spain (1845–1855)
Martyn Jolly (Australian National University School of Art and Design), Professor Pepper in ‘the Land of Bush Fires’: The Colonial Experience of the Magic Lantern and Scientific Spectacle
Suzanne Wray (Independen Researcher), R. Winter’s UNRIVALLED EXHIBITION of Chemical Dioramas, Dissolving Views & Chromatrope Views, &c., &c.

The Lantern on Stage: Theatrical Performance and the Spectacular
Erkki Huhtamo (UCLA),‘The Daddy of Them All’: John P. Dibble as an Itinerant Magic Lantern and Moving Picture Exhibitor
Pauline Lebbe (Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp) and Bart G. Moens (University of Antwerp), Symphonies of Sound and Vision: The Shadow Play as a Musical Lantern Spectacle
Kurt Vanhoutte and Nele Wynants (University of Antwerp), The Agioscope of Henri Robin and Pierre Séguin: New Views on the History of the Magic Lantern
Frank Kessler (Utrecht University), Staging Projections: The Lantern in German Theatrical Productions

Threshold Media: The Lantern between Worlds
Bart G. Moens (University of Antwerp) and Karel Vanhaesebrouck (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Exhibiting Privates in Public: A Media Archaeological Exploration of Erotica
Eleonora Paklons (University of Antwerp), Gossiping about Ghosts: The Attraction of the Supernatural in fin-de-siècle Magic Lantern Performances
Gabriela Cruz (University of Michigan), The Magic Lantern’s Surreal Song

The Authors
Abstracts