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Criminal poisoning at once fascinated and terrified Victorian society. Anonymous and coldly calculating, poisoners, observers feared, were drawing on the advances made by modern science to inflict a new and insidious form of violence. To counter this threat, contemporaries looked to an emergent field of scientific expertise - toxicology. As a 'poison detective', it was the toxicologist's task to bring invisible deeds to the light of day and, by recourse to his test-tubes and chemical reagents, to enable poisoned bodies to tell their tales from beyond the grave. Yet poison detection in practice was no easy matter, and its findings were subjected to searching questions by an anxious, and often skeptical, public.

In this challenging and entertaining new book, Ian Burney embeds discussions about the relationship between medico-legal expertise and its wider cultural context in an account of several celebrated poisoning trials, focusing in particular on the 1856 case of William Palmer. Palmer - rogue doctor, gambler, forger, adulterer, and serial murderer - both served as the apogee of the Victorian poisoner, and ultimately called into question the capacity of the poison detective to satisfy the demands of his public.

This interdisciplinary history combines a keen understanding of the social and cultural landscape of the period with the histories of science, medicine, and the law. Lucidly written and blending rigorous scholarship with riveting stories from the annals of crime, Poison, detection and the Victorian imagination will appeal to an interdisciplinary professional audience, and to all those interested in the darker side of Victorian society.