A Manual of Cheirosophy

About this book

Can the shape of a thumb reveal stubbornness? Could the lines of a palm disclose the course of a life? Edward Heron-Allen approaches such questions with the painstaking confidence of a Victorian collector determined to classify every detail.

His illustrated manual separates the study of hand shapes from the reading of palm lines, tracing the history and vocabulary of cheirosophy along the way. Diagrams turn the hand into an elaborate map of signs and supposed meanings. It is a revealing record of how fortune-telling sought the respectability of systematic study.