magic lantern

Old-fashioned projectors, known as magic lanterns, would be used to show pictures such as these in places like church halls across Great Britain.

Hanks added that the whole museum is, to him, “the world’s largest magic lantern.”

Projected scenes are a theme in all the museum’s galleries, with technology from 18th century “magic lanterns” through silent films to the 3-D digital tech of today.

But puppetry, magic lanterns, the painted scene unspooling slowly between two poles — a device called a crankie — all these would have been familiar to Shelley.

On Saturday and Sunday, they will also give magic lantern shows for young audiences, where they will offer noisemakers to create sound effects and 19th-century toy lanterns to explore.