Special Collections
Book of the Month, August 2005
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A Compendium of Phrenology
William H. Crook
London : S. Leigh, 1828
H.P.L. [Crook] Rare Books Case
William Crook is described on the title page of this work as a member of the Phrenological Society of London, a corresponding member of the Phrenological Society of Edinburgh, and a lecturer on phrenology. In an advertisement at the end of the text he offers not only lectures on phrenology, but also "a phrenological estimate of the natural character and capacity, with a written note of the development". Interest in the subject area included collecting crania, and within the body of the text is a plea for donations: "The Publisher of this work, Mr. Leigh, 18, Strand, London, or Mr G. Banks, F.L.S., St. Aubyn-Street, Devonport, will take charge of any specimens which may be intended for my own collection; and they will be registered and preserved with grateful feelings towards the donors".
Crook believed phrenology to be the most useful of all the sciences. He begins his work by reviewing contemporary knowledge of phrenology and then looks at mental faculties, their use and abuse. The use of language, for example, is given as "invention and retention of words", its abuses as "prating, loquacity, garrulity, impertinence".
Senate House Library purchased the work this year for the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature, which despite its name covers topics overlapping with science and medicine in addition to works on legerdemain, witchcraft and spiritualism. Apart from the Senate House Library copy, this small, modest 24-page work in its original boards is not recorded electronically as being in any major British research library except the British Library (see COPAC). No copies are recorded on the union catalogue of American academic libraries, RLIN.
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