From the gilded and embossed cover to the lustrous endpapers, Lucinda Hawksely's Bitten by Witch Fever: Wallpaper & Arsenic in the Victorian Home is a decadent delight. Created in collaboration with the UK's National Archives, the 2016 publication illustrates the domestic dangers of arsenic poisoning in the nineteenth century with extensive facsimiles of the wallpapers that posed much of the danger. Although at times privileging surface over substance and structure, Bitten by Witch Fever is nonetheless an engaging, beautiful summer read.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, advances in chemistry led to the creation of a veritable rainbow of synthetic pigments. Beginning with the deep lime of Scheele's green in 1775, these pigments brought bright new colors into the Victorian home in the form of painted toys, paper food wrappings, artificial flowers and fruit, and - most infamously - wallpaper. Infamous because many of these pigments included toxic components, especially white arsenic; the loosely attached compounds were easily consumed by unsuspecting residents, leading to a spate of poisonings whose symptoms ranged from mild headaches and nausea to death.

Hawksley traces this macabre chapter in history from the technological changes that made wallpaper widely affordable to the eventual public backlash that put a kibosh on the use of pigments containing arsenic. Additional chapters broaden the scope to describe other ways in which arsenic infiltrated Victorian public consciousness: as a much-sensationalized murder-method, as an additive in myriad household goods, and even as a supposed miracle ingredient in medicine. Hawksley casts a wide net to connect the tainted wallpaper to all aspects of society.

The brief chapters are interleaved with extensive facsimiles of wallpaper samples all tested by the National Archives and found to contain arsenic. Richly colored and meticulously reproduced, the 275 samples are arranged roughly chromatically, helping to visually dispel the myth that bright green shades were the only source of danger. From the lush panoramas of the early nineteenth century to Christopher Dresser's crisp tessellated geometries, the included samples convey the expansiveness of Victorian wallpaper design and tastes, as well as the shadow side of the pervasiveness of arsenic risk.

Unfortunately, the wallpapers' role in supporting the argument of Bitten by Witch Fever largely stops there. While visually captivating, the extensive illustration sections further break up an already somewhat fragmented narrative. The chapters read better as individual essays than a cohesive whole, with abrupt topic changes from one to the next and significant repetitions in the material included. Whether this was Hawksley's intention is unclear: taken in one narrative arc, the text is frustratingly redundant, yet few of the chapters are fully fleshed out enough to be satisfying on their own. Some of the trouble may arise from Hawksley's occasional tendency to favor the salacious over the relevant. For instance, a chapter on the possible legitimate health benefits of arsenical springs and spas is truncated by a sensationalized account of the between William Morris, Jane Morris, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 

The sensation of being left hanging is further exacerbated by a total lack of citations. While Hawksley's extensive publication history - she has written nearly a dozen books on the nineteenth century, as well as several others about art more generally - lends her credibility, the claims made in Bitten by Witch Fever must still be taken with a liberal sprinkling of salt. The book provides an engaging introduction to a particularly fascinating moment in design history, but is on its own insufficient as a source for research or academic writing.

However, the delights of Bitten by Witch Fever are not all superficial. Throughout, Hawksley maintains a focus on teasing out the tensions between the competing interests of industry, the press, government agencies, and the public. Expressing frustrated bewilderment at the British government's refusal to take regulatory action on the obvious health risks of arsenic-containing pigments, Hawksley concludes with a galvanizing account of the efficacy of consumer action in halting their sale. Faced as we are with an administration that seems determined to roll back regulation and support industry at the expense of citizens' health, Hawksley's reminder of the power of public opinion is a timely one. Wrapped in layers upon layers of sumptuous wallpaper, it is also a beautiful one.

Further reading: 

Bartrip, P. W. J. "How Green Was My Valance?: Environmental Arsenic Poisoning and the Victorian Domestic Ideal." The English Historical Review 109, no. 433 (1994): 891-913. www.jstor.org/stable/574537.

Matthews David, Alison. “Poisonous Pigments: Arsenical Greens.” In Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present, 70-97. London; New York: Bloomsbury Visual Art, 2017. // NYPL Call No: 646.3