Oscar Wilde’s Palms in New Exhibition About Divination
Oscar Wilde’s hands sketched by Edward Heron-Allen
The Bodleian Libraries’ new exhibition Oracles, Omens and Answers opens tomorrow, exploring a wide range of historic divination techniques form astrology and palm reading to weather and public health forecasting.
Running through April 27, 2025 , at the Weston Gallery in Oxford highlights include:
- a sketch of Oscar Wilde’s palms which his palm reader believed indicated “a great love of detail...extraordinary brain power and profound scholarship”
- a 19th century illuminated Javanese almanac
- the autobiography of astrologer Joan Quigley, who worked with Nancy and Ronald Reagan in the White House for seven years
- casebooks of astrologer-physicians in 16th and 17th century England
- an ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet describing the observation of patterns in the guts of birds
The exhibition is curated by Dr Michelle Aroney, whose research focuses on early modern science and religion, and Professor David Zeitlyn, an expert in the anthropology of divination.
:People have tried to find ways of predicting the future for as long as we have had recorded history," said Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian. "This exhibition examines and illustrates how across time and culture, people manage the uncertainty of everyday life in their own way. We hope that through the extraordinary exhibits, and the scholarship that brings them together, visitors to the show will appreciate the long history of people seeking answers to life’s biggest questions, and how people have approached it in their own unique way."
The exhibition is accompanied by the book Divinations, Oracles & Omens, edited by Michelle Aroney and David Zeitlyn, which is published today by Bodleian Library Publishing.
