French national library quarantines 'poisonous' books
The Paris institution identified the offending copies after US researchers discovered publishers in the Victorian era had used the chemical to colour book bindings
Researchers at the University of Delaware have drawn up a list of potentially dangerous volumes as part of the Poison Book Project. Image: Shutterstock
France's national library said last week that it had removed four 19th-century books from its shelves whose emerald green covers were likely laced with highly poisonous arsenic. The library said handling the books — which were printed in Britain — would probably cause only minor harm, but it was taking them away for further analysis.
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"We have put these works in quarantine and an external laboratory will analyse them to evaluate how much arsenic is present in each volume," it said.
The Paris institution identified the offending copies after US researchers discovered publishers in the Victorian era had used the chemical to colour book bindings.
The arsenic-containing green pigments were called Paris Green, Emerald Green or even Scheele's Green after a German-born chemist.
Testing hundreds of book covers for heavy metals since 2019, researchers at the University of Delaware have drawn up a list of potentially dangerous volumes as part of the Poison Book Project.
