author

Mrs. J. B. Dale

Best known for writing under the name Mrs. J. B. Dale, this British author left behind a curious late-Victorian guide to palm reading that still catches readers’ attention today. Her work blends practical instruction with the period’s fascination with mysticism and character reading.

1 Audiobook

Indian Palmistry

Indian Palmistry

by Mrs. J. B. Dale

About the author

Helena Fenwick Dale was a British writer who published as Mrs. J. B. Dale, a name taken from her husband, Sir James Backhouse Dale. Available catalog and library records identify her dates as 1853–1921.

She is best known for Indian Palmistry (1895), a compact guide to reading the hand. The book explains lines, mounts, and markings in a straightforward, instructional style, reflecting the strong popular interest in occult and spiritual subjects at the end of the nineteenth century.

Very little biographical detail is easily confirmed beyond her name, dates, and pseudonym, but her surviving work gives a clear sense of her niche: accessible popular writing aimed at readers curious about fortune-telling, personality, and the symbolic meanings people have long attached to the human hand.