Poison Mysteries; in History, Romance and Crime
$20.00
The original 1930 edition, meticulously preserved. This edition moves beyond the sterile, mass-market reproductions often found today to bring you a premium Collector’s Facsimile. Every page maintains the historical pagination and aesthetic of the source text, paired with a bespoke cover design unique to this imprint.
A masterful blend of scholarship and morbid fascination, Poison Mysteries in History, Romance and Crime guides the reader through centuries of humanity’s most secretive weapon—the art of poisoning. C. J. S. Thompson, curator and historian of medicine, assembles a cabinet of deadly curiosities: venom-tipped arrows of primitive hunters, the hemlock of Socrates, the elixirs of alchemists, and the perfumed philtres of Renaissance intrigue. From mythic sorceresses to infamous poisoners like the Borgias and Madame de Brinvilliers, he traces how superstition, science, and crime intertwine in the pursuit of power and passion. Written in the urbane, precise style of early twentieth-century scientific history, yet charged with Gothic atmosphere, the book makes toxicology not only instructive but compelling—a compendium of death’s most elegant disguises.
