Born in Paris in 1861, the third child of a successful boot manufacturer, Georges Méliès showed interest in the visual arts of drawing, caricature, painting, and sculpture from childhood. As a young man, he briefly entered the family trade and worked with the shop machinery. He later said, "I was born an artist in my soul, very skilled with my hands, capable of inventing things and a comedian by nature. I was at once an intellectual and a manual worker." His knowledge of mechanics combined with his artistic talents later led him to undertake scenic and machinery design for the theater and films.

During an 1884 stay in London, Méliès was first attracted to the world of stage illusion. He returned to Paris in 1885, but rather than reentering the family business, he continued the...