Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
I want to read the book!
All characters reduced
The Secret Poisoner - A Century of Murder - cover

The Secret Poisoner - A Century of Murder

Linda Stratmann

Publisher: Yale University Press

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

“This fine social history charts the changing patterns of using poison” and the forensic methods developed to detect it in the Victorian Era (The Guardian, UK).   Murder by poison alarmed, enthralled, and in some ways even defined the Victorian age. Linda Stratmann’s dark and splendid social history reveals the nineteenth century as a gruesome battleground where poisoners went head-to-head with scientific and legal authorities who strove to detect poisons, control their availability, and bring the guilty to justice.   Separating fact from Hollywood fiction, Stratmann corrects many misconceptions about particular poisons and their deadly effects. She also documents how the motives for poisoning—which often involved domestic unhappiness—evolved as marriage and child protection laws began to change. Combining archival research with vivid storytelling, Stratmann charts the era’s inexorable rise of poison cases.
Available since: 03/22/2016.
Print length: 344 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • The General - Godfather of Crime - cover

    The General - Godfather of Crime

    Paul Williams

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    The extraordinary life and crimes of Martin Cahill, gangster, criminal mastermind, MOST WANTED MAN
In a twenty-year career marked by obsessive secrecy, brutality and meticulous planning, Cahill netted over £40 million. He was untouchable - until a bullet from an IRA hitman ended it all.
The General tells the inside story of

- The Beit robbery - one of the world's biggest art heists
- The attempted assassination of a top forensic scientist
- The O'Connor Jewellers robbery, netting £3m
- The tyre-slashing and intimidation
- The crucifixion of a suspected 'grass'
- The millions still missing The book reveals Cahill's bizarre personality and the activities of the Tango Squad, the special police unit which targetted him with tactics used on the infamous Kray Gang.
Now a major film from John Boorman starring Brendan Gleeson and John Voight.
    Show book
  • In the Morning of Life - cover

    In the Morning of Life

    Thomas More

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    LibriVox volunteers bring you eight recordings of In the Morning of Life by Thomas Moore. This was the Weekly Poetry project for September 13th, 2009.
    Show book
  • Beyond Bizarre - Frightening Facts and Blood-Curdling True Tales - cover

    Beyond Bizarre - Frightening...

    Varla Ventura

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    The author of The Book of the Bizarre returns with a new compendium of freaky facts, terrifying trivia, and true stories that are stranger than fiction.   In Beyond Bizarre, Varla Ventura presents an all-new batch of nightmarish tales that teem queasy diseases and paranormal encounters—not to mention the outrageous, outlandish, and the simply strange.  Arranged into thirteen chilling chapters like Haunted Hollywood, Tales from the Cryptids, Bride of the Bizarre, and It’s Enough to Make You Hurl, Beyond Bizarre tackles everything from female pirates and creepy candy stripers to psychic predictions, virgin shark births and much, much more.   A word of warning: this book is not for the faint of heart!
    Show book
  • Nutcracker - Money Madness Murder: A Family Album - cover

    Nutcracker - Money Madness...

    Shana Alexander

    • 1
    • 0
    • 0 
    New York Times Bestseller: The “compelling” story of Frances Schreuder, who persuaded her son to kill her multimillionaire father, Franklin Bradshaw (The Washington Post Book World). In August of 1983 Shana Alexander, acclaimed journalist and chronicler of the lives and criminal trials of Jean Harris and Patty Hearst, wrote to New York City ballet patron Frances Schreuder on the eve of her murder trial. Schreuder stood accused of unlawfully causing the death of her father, Franklin Bradshaw, and of soliciting, encouraging, and aiding her prep school–student son in the homicide in the hope of financial gain. Alexander never received a response, but she flew to Salt Lake City and met with Schreuder’s mother, the matriarch of the Mormon dynasty—eighty-year-old Berenice Bradshaw.Nutcracker is the true story of this crime—the twisting four-year police investigation, the derailed cover-up and conspiracy, the dramatic trials. It is also the tale of a family riven by greed and madness. Drawing on interviews with all the major players, Alexander paints a powerful portrait of a psychopathic woman driven by avarice, so depraved that she persuaded her own son to commit grand-patricide. A finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, Nutcracker is “a Chekovian family tragedy [that] builds in intensity around this uniquely twisted woman” (The Washington Post Book World).  
    Show book
  • Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths Around Uxbridge - cover

    Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths...

    Jonathan Oates

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    This west London town has its own character—and its own deadly criminal history—from the author of Unsolved Murders of Victorian and Edwardian London.  Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths Around Uxbridge takes the reader on a sinister and sad journey through centuries of local crime and conspiracy, meeting victims and villains of all sorts along the way. There is no shortage of harrowing—and revealing—incidents of evil and despair to recount from the earliest recorded history of the Uxbridge district up to the present day.   Jonathan Oates’s fascinating research has uncovered some grisly events and unsavory individuals whose conduct throws a harsh light on the history of this suburban area west of London. His book records crime and punishment in all its dreadful variety. Among many acts of violence and wickedness are the burning to death of five Protestant martyrs and the execution of a turbulent priest in Tudor times, a family massacred at Denham in 1870, and several brutal murders that have never been solved or explained. Cases that stand out as particularly shocking or bizarre include a son who was killed by his mother, a woman who died after an illegal operation, the Uxbridge tea-shop murder of 1951, and a man tried for manslaughter and later murder in West Drayton, who committed suicide two decades later.   This chronicle of Uxbridge’s hidden history will be compelling reading for anyone who is interested in the local history of the area and in the dark side of human nature.  
    Show book
  • But I Trusted You - And Other True Cases - cover

    But I Trusted You - And Other...

    Ann Rule

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    The #1 New York Times–bestselling true crime author dissects unforgettable cases of a spouse, lover, family member or helpful stranger’s ultimate betrayal. 
 
Whether driven to extreme violence by greed or jealousy, passion or rage, the calculating sociopaths in this true crime collection targeted those closest to them—unwitting victims whose last disbelieving words could well have been “but I trusted you . . .” 
 
Headlining this page-turning anthology is the case of middle-school counselor Chuck Leonard, found shot to death outside his Washington State home on an icy February morning. A complicated mix of family man and wild man, Chuck played hard and loved many . . . but who crossed the line by murdering him in cold blood? And why? The revelation is as stunning as the shattering crime itself, powerfully illuminating how those we think we know can ingeniously hide their destructive and homicidal designs. 
 
Along with other shocking cases, immaculately detailed and sharply analyzed by America’s #1 true crime writer, this fourteenth Crime Files volume is essential reading for getting inside the mind of the hidden killers among us.
    Show book