Vaught's Practical Character Reader

by L.A. Vaught

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: Nonfiction, Phrenology

252 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1902

Reviews

[IIIIIIKKKKKEEEEE]

If Vaught was better at organizing information then this would be the end all be all of Physiognomy. If you are okay with sifting through his work then use it.

[Richard]

Jeff Vorzimmer rescues a bizarre gem from publishing’s forgotten past. His introduction explains the oddity of phrenology, “the science of discerning personality traits from the shape of a person’s head and its bumps.” One of its leading proponents helped bring phrenology into its heyday, roughly around the jazz era. In fact, he wrote the book on it—and this is it.

Character Reader is packed with illustrations depicting Vaught’s looney ideas. It’s kind of like judging everyone’s character by their appearance. The more “handsome and normal,” the more good and true; and of course, the opposite too.

This is a book that’s more fun to browse than study or read front-to-back. The ideas are outrageous and the attributed traits can be somewhat repetitive. It’s a great novelty piece and could also serve as a sort of catalog of character traits, perhaps of use to creatives in character development. Collectors of the Staccato Crime line will also want a copy.

The book also as a lesson in time. What was once considered an emerging science was later proved to be ridiculous speculation with no basis in fact. A conman’s handbook for the ages. What’s next, a nineteenth century recipe book for snake oil? Who knew the lessons of the phrenology con would remain so prescient 100 years later?

[Nicole]

why is this focusing only on white features

[Yayati Ashvapati]

The elements of human nature are concise, so is the character-build. But the physiognomy is plain non-sense

[Borek]

Radical musings on physiognomy

[Nissa Rachmidwiati]

KONYOL DAN ABSURD BANGET HAHAHHA NON-SENSE DAN GAK JELAS. Bintangnya 3 cuma karena bisa bikin ketawa. :)))

[Elis Niyazieva]

crazy illustrations, too focused on the scalp and hairline, which is weird...