Phrenology, England, 19th century

Exercise books containing notes for the delivery of courses of lectures on phrenology.

Although all from the same hand, the writing and layout of the books vary sufficiently for them to be grouped into five distinct sets, each of which constitutes an incomplete course of lectures on the general theory of phrenology and the specific numbered phrenological "organs", many but not all of the books bearing numbers that place them in the sequence of lectures. Although to an extent one set can be used to supplement gaps in another, there is considerable overlap between them and the same material tends to recur in several forms. It is not possible to establish the precise relationship of the different versions of these lectures and they are listed here simply in order of the size of the surviving fragment.

Square brackets indicate titles supplied by the cataloguer; numbers in round brackets relate to the numbering scheme of the phrenological organs. Some books neither possess a number on the cover nor refer to numbered organs and thus cannot be ascribed a precise placing in the course of lectures; these are listed at the end of the relevant set.