The Arsenic Century
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Review
As well as opening up vistas of Victorian science, 'The Arsenic Century' is a good read. (W F Bynum, Nature )
Lively account...This is a model for intellectually sound popular history...'Arsenic Century' has much to recommend. (Ian Burney, BBC History Magazine )
I'd recommend this fascinating book. (Rebecca Armstrong, The Arsenic Century )
James C. Whorton has written a lovely book, a near-perfect blend of rigorous scholarship and jaunty story-telling. (Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian )
Brilliantly informative and entertaining book. (Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian )
A lovely book, a near-perfect blend of rigorous scholarship and jaunty storytelling. (Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian )
The story his book tells is both gripping and terrible. (Sunday Times, John Carey )
Lively account...This is a model for intellectually sound popular history...'Arsenic Century' has much to recommend. (Ian Burney, BBC History Magazine )
I'd recommend this fascinating book. (Rebecca Armstrong, The Arsenic Century )
James C. Whorton has written a lovely book, a near-perfect blend of rigorous scholarship and jaunty story-telling. (Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian )
Brilliantly informative and entertaining book. (Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian )
A lovely book, a near-perfect blend of rigorous scholarship and jaunty storytelling. (Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian )
The story his book tells is both gripping and terrible. (Sunday Times, John Carey )
Product Description
Arsenic is rightly infamous as the poison of choice for Victorian murderers. Yet the great majority of fatalities from arsenic in the nineteenth century came not from intentional poisoning, but from accident. Kept in many homes for the purpose of poisoning rats, the white powder was easily mistaken for sugar or flour and often incorporated into the family dinner. It was also widely present in green dyes, used to tint everything from candles and candies to curtains, wallpaper, and clothing (it was arsenic in old lace that was the danger). Whether at home amidst arsenical curtains and wallpapers, at work manufacturing these products, or at play swirling about the papered, curtained ballroom in arsenical gowns and gloves, no one was beyond the poison's reach. Drawing on the medical, legal, and popular literature of the time, The Arsenic Century paints a vivid picture of its wide-ranging and insidious presence in Victorian daily life, weaving together the history of its emergence as a nearly inescapable household hazard with the sordid story of its frequent employment as a tool of murder and suicide. And ultimately, as the final chapter suggests, arsenic in Victorian Britain was very much the pilot episode for a series of environmental poisoning dramas that grew ever more common during the twentieth century and still has no end in sight.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't read this over lunch,
By
This review is from: The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work, and Play (Hardcover)
To be Victorian was, it seems, to be arsenicated. The poison was in everything: used as a dye in textiles, wallpaper and even children's toys, added to sweets and foodstuffs, employed to dip sheep and as an insecticide on fruit. It even found its way into beer. It was made into medicines (some of which remained in use well into the 20th century). It was also, of course, used by murderers and would be murderers (perhaps its most familiar role to us). After reading this book, one might wonder how anybody survived the 19th century at all.
In this book, Whorton traces the history of arsenic and its use, including the struggles of forensic chemists to develop tests (all those murder trials!) and traces some of the involved routes by which the chemical came to be consumed. It's not for the fainthearted. The descriptions of the agonies inflicted by arsenic poisoning are hardly lunchtime reading, and the attitude of the authorities, as the scale of the chemical's penetration into everyday life became apparent, can be infuriating. Vested interests (William Morris refused to accept that use of the poison in the wallpapers his firm produced was a danger - he referred to the "arsenic scare") and a laissez-faire attitude unwilling to risk damage to trade, repeatedly hampered attempts to control the use of arsenic. Whorton, of course, draws parallels with later environmental and health threats (though perhaps they hardly need spelling out). It is an excellent read. Recommended.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Very Peculiar History Book,
By
This review is from: The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work, and Play (Hardcover)
This is the most interesting history book that I have read in a very long time. The style is gripping (and nicely edited into 'English' English - the author is an American) and fluid so, once you pick this book up, you'll find it hard to put back down. Occasional asides make interesting comparison with modern controversies (such as the controversy over trans-fat in food), and it's hard not to make ones own comparisons between the unwillingness of business to abandon Arsenic in Victorian times and the unwillingness of business to 'green-up' today.
For anyone who yearns for the past, let this book be a warning to you!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Arsenic Century,
By
This review is from: The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work, and Play (Hardcover)
This is a fascinating book by James C Whorton which illustrates just how dangerous it was in Victorian times, with virulent poisons readily on sale and obtainable. One of the worst was Scheele's Green, a dye which produced a lovely green colour on items like wallpaper, fumes from which could be very debilitating and on occasion fatal. The book discloses that Napoleon probably did not die of arsenical poisoning, although he, Josephine and their son were found to have had arsenic residue in their hair over a number of years, probably via Scheele's. Illustrations are largely confined to line drawings. A must for Victorian scholars and anyone who likes true-crime fact, although I found the writing a bit pedestrian, which was disappointing and resulted in the loss of a star. Worth buying though.
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