"The book that for more than a century has been the standard reference for reading the hand, now in a completely reformatted edition. Palmistry is one of the ancient arts, practiced in Egypt, India, Greece, and Rome and prized as a sacred and peculiar gift. Its practitioners were highly respected philosophers, oracles and priests. Yet by the 17th century, it had become a lost art, kept alive almost solely in gypsy camps. And by the end of the 19th cetury, it was seen as little more than quackery, a small step up (or down) from fortune telling and alchemy. When it was originally published (as The Laws of Scientific Hand Reading), Benham's book immediately transformed the image of palm reading from a huckster's trick to a practice with a firm scientific basis. The Essential Edition brings Benham's original text back in print. It also updates many of the graphics, which have become obscured through numerous printings."