ABSTRACT
Examining graphology manuals, periodicals and narrative fiction, this chapter traces popular Victorian ideas about the relationship between handwriting, identity and character. Victorian graphologists claimed that handwriting was uniquely individual and that qualified readers could reliably judge character on the basis of autographs. However, although graphologists claimed scientific neutrality for their method, handwriting analysis was deeply invested in affirming and consolidating racial, sexual and class distinctions. In particular, graphology manuals repeatedly dismissed the handwriting of lower-class people as a fruitless object for analysis, thereby denying their individuality and revealing broader cultural anxieties about the democratizing impact of mass education.
