Queen Victoria's Skull George Combe and the Mid-Victorian Mind [Hardcover]

Queen Victoria's Skull explores the life and thinking of the Edinburgh phrenologist George Combe. Phrenology is a theory which claims to be able to detect personality traits, character and predisposition to criminality on the basis of the shape of the skull. Now dismissed as risible, it was treated with reverence by many Victorians.George Combe was the author of The Constitution of Man, an ethical treatise that sold over 100,000 copies in Britain and 200,000 copies in America by 1900. The quirkiness of his life and work, and the fact that he befriended and influenced many public figures - from Prince Albert to George Eliot - make for an engaging story. Queen Victoria's Skull, however, does more than tell the tale of one idiosyncratic individual. By tracing the development of Combe's intellectual interests, it provides a prism through which to view Victorian culture, science and politics, covering themes of class, religion, sex, crime, art and the theatre. David Stack has written an entertaining and erudite study of an important, and now neglected, Victorian figure.

Introduction1 Writing Combe's Life2 Toots, laddie'3 The Old Philosophy and the New4 Combe's Development5 'The rascal' and his 'willing pupil'6 Combe's Constitution7 What the Actress said to the Phrenologist8 Cecilia, the Scientist's Wife9 Combe in the USA : Quackery, Commercialism and the Civic Ideal10 Heidelberg, Haemorrhoids and Health11 Italy and Art12 Educating Albert13 The New Philosophy14 Respectable Radicalism : George Eliot and Mesmerism15 Racial Science and Racial Politics16 God's Secular Providence