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.
By:
Dr David Stack
Imprint: Hambledon Continuum
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: illustrated edition
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 32mm
Weight: 712g
ISBN: 9781847252333
ISBN 10: 1847252338
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 02 June 2008
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction 1 Writing Combe's Life 2 ‘Toots, laddie' 3 The Old Philosophy and the New 4 Combe's Development 5 'The rascal' and his 'willing pupil' 6 Combe's Constitution 7 What the Actress said to the Phrenologist 8 Cecilia, the Scientist's Wife 9 Combe in the USA : Quackery, Commercialism and the Civic Ideal 10 Heidelberg, Haemorrhoids and Health 11 Italy and Art 12 Educating Albert 13 The New Philosophy 14 Respectable Radicalism : George Eliot and Mesmerism 15 Racial Science and Racial Politics 16 God's Secular Providence
David Stack is Professor of History at University of Reading, UK. He is the author of The First Darwinian Left (2003) and Queen Victoria's Skull (2008, Bloomsbury).
Reviews for Queen Victoria's Skull: George Combe and the Mid-Victorian Mind
Stack's book does a superior job of reviewing Combe's colorful story. Any scholar with a general interest in Victorian intellectual culture would be well served by this text. Beyond academic readers, Stack's book would probably operate well at the graduate level. -Roger Pauly, History: Reviews of New Books, Winter 2009
