“You'll be as appalled at times as you are entertained.” —Bustle, one of The 17 Best Nonfiction Books Coming Out In June 2018
“A heady mix of erudite history and delicious gossip.” —Aja Raden, author of Stoned
In the Washington Post roundup, “What your favorite authors are reading this summer,” A.J. Finn says, «I want to read The Royal Art of Poison, Eleanor Herman's history of poisons.”
Hugely entertaining, a work of pop history that traces the use of poison as a political—and cosmetic—tool in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today
The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned…
