Alexander Walker

Born in Leith, Scotland, on May 20, 1779, Alexander Walker studied at Edinburgh and is known to have studied anatomy with John Barclay, though sources suggest he did not complete a medical degree. He went on to build a varied career as a physiologist, aesthetician, encyclopaedist, translator, novelist, and journalist.

Walker founded and edited The European Review from 1824 to 1826, a multilingual journal that published in English, French, German, and Italian and attracted prominent contributors including Goethe and Cuvier. He was also associated with Benjamin Constant as a friend and translator, which hints at the international reach of his literary life.

His books range widely, but many readers now encounter him through works such as Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Woman, Intermarriage, Woman Physiologically Considered, and Pathology, Founded on the Natural System of Anatomy and Physiology. He died in Leith on December 7, 1852. Some of his ideas were highly characteristic of 19th-century thinking and are often read today as part of the history of science and social thought rather than as modern scientific authority.