Publications

The Encyclopaedia of the Magic Lantern

This title is now out of print and we have no remaining stock.

You may find second-hand copies in online auctions, or from the sales stalls at our Society meetings. Alternatively you could advertise for a spare copy in our regular members’ e-letter Connect.


David Robinson, Stephen Herbert and Richard Crangle (eds), The Encyclopaedia of the Magic Lantern

London: Magic Lantern Society, 2001

ISBN 978-0-9510441-5-5

360 pages, hardback, 24 x 28.5cm

The Encyclopaedia of the Magic Lantern is a comprehensive reference source to the history, technology, uses and aesthetics of the optical lantern in its many forms.

The alphabetical entries cover a wide range of subjects: inventors and patentees, makers and merchants, showmen, writers and lecturers; the fascinating variety of styles and shapes of lanterns, with all their delightful and exotic names; the ingenious mechanisms of slides; the organisations that used lanterns for education, propaganda or religious persuasion; and of course the collectors, collections and museums.

The scope of the book is worldwide, covering all parts of Europe, much about North America, and fascinating insights into lanterns in Japan and Australia.