Short plays using the new ghost illusion swiftly became sensationally popular. Pepper staged many dramatic and profitable demonstrations, notably in the lecture theatre of London’s Royal Polytechnic. By late 1863 the illusion’s fame had spread extensively with ghost-centred plays performed at multiple London venues, in Manchester and Glasgow, Paris and New York. Royalty attended. There was even a shortage of plate glass because of demand from theatres for glass screens. A popular song from 1863 celebrated the ‘Patent Ghost’:“At Music Halls, Theatres too,