Slides that, compared to other categories, were relatively self-sufficient, not requiring a detailed lecture, but being able in and of themselves to convey meaning to audiences. These slides often drew upon well-known existing narratives, so relied on audience foreknowledge in order to assist interpretation. They had both low and high representative encoding levels in their images: because of their low scenic complexity plates could be projected with the lanternist’s occasional comments, but they rarely had print readings supplied by the manufacturer with the collection, nor did they usually employ a vocal and / or musical accompaniment; but high encoding nonetheless resided in the combined use of visual and literary-narrative traditions to represent the contents registered in their images. According to the variability in the literary-narratives employed, magic lantern slides of within narrative genres can be grouped into eight types: sequential art, tale, romance, adventure, everyday, phantasmagoria, topical, title and advertising.