Queen Victoria's Skull: George Combe and the mid-Victorian mind

George Combe (1788-1858) was an Edinburgh-based phrenologist who came to wield a tremendous intellectual influence in the mid nineteenth century. An advisor to Price Albert: the mentor of Richard Cobden: a formative influence on George Eliot: Combe provided intellectual inspiration to a generation of political and educational reformers. Combe's name fell into obscurity due to his connection with the discredited pseudo-science of phrenology, and this will be the first full-length study of his life and work since 1879. Among the subjects explored are the connections between phrenology and political reform, Combe's role as a public lecturer, and a detailed consideration of his Constitution of Man (1828).