WOLFF, Charlotte.

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Studies in Hand-Reading. First edition. Wolff "attempts to demonstrate an unexpectedly close correlation between the detailed configuration of the hand and the outstanding traits forming the personality complex of the owner of the hands" (Schultz, p. 479). To this end she analyses the palms of numerous key contemporary creative figures, including her close friend Aldous Huxley.Huxley provides the preface, and it was he and his wife Maria who persuaded a number of friends, including Virginia Woolf and George Bernard Shaw, to have their hands read, Wolff noting in her autobiography that Maria, "treated my new venture as if it were her own... she devoted all her time and energy to introducing me into her and Aldous's circle" (Wolff, p. 87). A powerful intellectual figure, Wolff (1897-1986) continued her study of hand-reading in three further works: The Human Hand (1943), A Psychology of Gesture (1945) and The Hand in Psychological Diagnosis (1951). Born in Riesenburg (now Prabuty, Poland), Wolff studied literature and philosophy at the University of Freiburg before graduating in medicine. She then worked as a physician and psychotherapist in the predominantly under-served working class districts of Berlin. In 1933 she was forced to flee Germany, first going to Sanary-sur-Mer in Paris (where she met Huxley), and in 1936 to London, becoming a British citizen in 1947. Wolff is also widely respected for her pioneering works on lesbianism and bisexuality; Bisexuality: A Study (1977)

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