through vertical apertures. The paper was noted by Michael Faraday and by Joseph Plateau, who both mentioned it in their articles that presented new illusions with apparent motion. It has often been heralded as the basis for the persistence of vision theory, which has for a long time been falsely regarded as the principle causing the perception of motion in animation and film. In 1834, Roget claimed to have invented "the Phantasmascope or Phenakisticope" in the spring of 1831, a few years before Plateau introduced that first stroboscopic animation device. One of the promoters of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, which later became the Royal Society of Medicine, Roget was also a founder of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, writing a series of popular manuals for it. He wrote numerous papers on physiology and health, among them the fifth Bridgewater Treatise, Animal and Vegetable Physiology considered with reference to Natural Theology (1834), and articles for the Encyclopædia Britannica. He was hostile to phrenology, writing against it in a Britannica supplement in 1818, and devoting a two-volume work to it (1838). A chess player, in an article in the London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine Roget solved the general open knight's tour problem. He composed chess problems, and designed an inexpensive pocket chessboard. Selected publications In literature Canadian writer Keath Fraser published a story, Roget's Thesaurus, in 1982, which is narrated in Roget's voice. He has Roget speak on his wife's death, from cancer. Roget also appears in Shelagh Stephenson's An Experiment with an Air Pump, set in 1799, as the only historical character. The play is set in the fictional household of Joseph Fenwick, and Roget is one of Fenwick's assistants. A picture-book biography of Roget entitled The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus was published by Eerdmans Books in 2014. It was named a Caldecott Honor book for excellence in illustration and won the Sibert Medal for excellence in children's nonfiction. Family In 1824 Roget married Mary Taylor (1795–1833), the daughter of Jonathan Hobson. They had a son, John Lewis (1828–1908), and a daughter, Kate. References Further reading Emblen, D.L. (1969). “The Library of Peter Mark Roget.” The Book Collector 18 no 4 (winter): 449–469. External links Roget's spiral at YouTube 1779 births 1869 deaths Alumni of the University of Edinburgh People with mental disorders British people of Swiss descent Burials in Worcestershire English lexicographers