author
Alexander Walker
1779–1852
A lively and wide-ranging Scottish writer of the early 19th century, this author moved between science, journalism, criticism, and fiction with unusual ease. He is remembered for ambitious works on beauty, physiology, and human nature, as well as for editing an international literary review.
2 Audiobooks
Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Woman
by Alexander Walker
About the author
Born in Leith, Scotland, in 1779, Alexander Walker studied medicine and anatomy in Edinburgh before building a varied career in London. Rather than settling into one field, he wrote across many of them, becoming known as a physiologist, aesthetician, translator, novelist, journalist, and encyclopaedist.
Walker had a strong interest in how the body, mind, and ideas of beauty might be explained and organized. His books include works on beauty, physiology, and anthropology, and he also founded and edited The European Review in the 1820s, a multilingual journal that aimed to connect major European thinkers and writers.
His writing reflects the restless, argumentative spirit of his age: curious, confident, and eager to bring science, culture, and daily life into conversation. He died in Leith in 1852, leaving behind a body of work that shows just how wide one author’s ambitions could be in the 19th century.