Robert Saudek

Robert Saudek (21 April 1880 – 15 April 1935) was a Czech-born graphologist and writer of novels, stories, poems and plays. He had considerable influence on the content and standing of graphology worldwide. He also published numerous articles in many languages in periodicals as diverse as The Listener, Zeitschrift für Menschenkenntnis and the Journal of Social Psychology. He also founded the professional graphology society in the Netherlands. He also started two academic periodicals: one in Dutch and the other in English. Many graphologists worldwide today use Saudek’s work without knowing the origin. He published Experimental Graphology in 1929. Saudek examined the speed in handwriting. He quantified handwriting by use of a microscope, caliper, pressure board, ruler, protractor and slow-motion pictures. Saudek also attempted to deal with graphological phenomena in terms acceptable to the experimental psychologists. Life Robert Saudek was born in Kolín, Austria-Hungary, now Czech Republic, on 21 April 1880 (some sources say 1881), the son of a manufacturer of feather beds; Robert had a brother and two sisters. He was a polyglot: by the end of his life he had mastered Czech, German, Dutch, French and English. He studied a correspondence course produced by the well known German graphologist Hans Busse (who incidentally translated Crepieux-Jamin’s work into German) and was very familiar with the work of Ludwig Klages. Around 1900 he studied at the Universities of Prague, Leipzig and the Sorbonne. From 1903 to 1909 he authored plays, essays, epigrams and novels. It is reported that he ran an intelligence bureau in The Hague during World War I, from 1914 to 1918.