George Combe and the Influence of Phrenology upon the Arts

Hugh Witemeyer, Professor of English, University of New Mexico

Note 8 to Chapter 5 of the author's George Eliot and the Visual Arts, which Yale University Press published in a 1979. It has been included in the Victorian web with the kind permission of the author, who of course retains copyright.

George Combe, Phrenology Applied to Painting and Sculpture (London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., 1855), p. 78. The Leweses owned a copy of this book; see Baker, The George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Library, #464. Combe was converted to phrenology by Spurzheim around 1817 and became the leading spokesman and popularizer of the movement in Britain.

Last modified 28 November 2004