ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces George E. Harris's treatise to illustrate the near complete absence in it of subject matter, "the science of identity", as the nineteenth century drew to a close. Francis Wharton's Treatise on Medical Jurisprudence declared, "Identification of the person seen with the person accused is established by the testimony of witnesses who have known him long enough to have his appearance impressed firmly in their memory. The chapter focuses on the two texts, published nearly simultaneously in this two-year period in the twilight of the nineteenth century, A Treatise on the Law of Identification and Pudd'nhead Wilson. Twentieth-century sciences of identification claim high degrees of accuracy. As Harris's treatise illustrates, nineteenth-century identification was a multifaceted process, a sort of pastiche. Having learned about fingerprints by reading Galton's book, Twain wove them into the plot of Pudd'nhead Wilson, which has been called "the first post-Galtonian novel".
