Professor Pepper

Clever as was Robertson's ghost illusion, performed by the aid of the phantasmagoric lantern, it had one great defect: the images were painted on glass and lacked the necessary vitality. It was reserved for the nineteenth

century to produce the greatest of spectral exhibitions, that of Prof. Pepper, manager of the London Polytechnic Institution. In the year 1863, he in- vented a clever device for projecting the images of living persons in the air. The illusion is based on a simple optical effect. In the evening carry a lighted candle to the window and you will see reflected in the pane, not only the image of the candle but that of your hand and face as well. The same illusion may be seen while traveling in a lighted railway carriage at night; you gaze through the clear sheet of glass of the coach window and behold your " double " traveling along with you. The apparatus for producing the Pepper ghost has been used in dramatizations of Bulwer's " Strange Story," Dickens' " Haunted Man " and " Christmas Carol," and Dumas' " Corsican Brothers." In France the conjurers Eobin and Lassaigne presented the illusion with many novel and startling effects.

( from A Hopkins' 1896 book on Magic)