On this day in 1863, letters of patent were issued to Henry Dircks and John Henry Pepper for “an improvement on apparatus to be used in the exhibition of dramatic and other like performances.” The public soon knew it as Pepper’s Ghost, when it premiered at the Royal Polytechnic Institution that Christmas. The invention appeared to create transparent ghost actors on stage, interacting with real actors. The patent gave every evidence of being hurriedly arranged, or maybe the inventors disagreed: The angle of the glass had been miscalculated, confusing the principle. Pepper’s Ghost was the first tremor of a creative earthquake: magic done with mirrors.
Almanac
September 25: Pepper’s Ghost
On this day in 1863, letters of patent were issued to Henry Dircks and John Henry Pepper for “an improvement on apparatus to be used in the exhibition of dramatic and other like performances"
