ABSTRACT
The phrenologist George Combe’s book The constitution of man considered in relation to external objects (1828) became the nineteenth-century bible of naturalism. 1 It was one of the best-selling books of the century. Constitution’s remarkable sales, the amount of critical attention it received and its profound and extensive influence make Constitution, and the phrenological naturalism it proffered, a crucial part of nineteenth-century British cultural history. Factors relevant to Constitution’s immense sales will be discussed in Chapter 5.
