Biography

Phrenological Development of Robert Burns

by George Combe

When Burns’s widow, Jean Armour, died in 1834, his tomb at Dumfries was opened to lay her beside him, and a plaster cast was taken of his skull. George Combe, the leading phrenologist in Edinburgh, studied it and set out in this little book what its shape revealed about the poet’s character. Phrenology is nonsense, but the cast was real, and this is one of the stranger books written about any poet.

The librarian

Read it in the Library After Dark Or read it as plain text

Reading time

About 7 minutes

Where to find it

The Burns Room

Edition

Project Gutenberg, eBook #30489. In the public domain in the United States.