Poetry and poison combine as we look at a lavishly illustrated history of arsenic in the home and a book-length Christmas poem
Christmas is a time for beautiful books and we have two on this podcast.
Bitten By Witch Fever tells the fascinating story of arsenic in the 19th-century home, and is illustrated with more than 270 facsimiles of “arsenical” wallpaper designs drawn from the UK’s National Archives at Kew, in west London. Its author, the biographer and art historian Lucinda Hawksley, joins us to trace the toxic history of a substance has been used through the centuries for medicines, cosmetics, interior design, even food colourings, despite its deadly effects.
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