A Gallery of Poisoners: Thirteen Classic Case Histories of Murder by Poisoning

by Adrian Vincent

Here are thirteen cases of fatal passions, unfortunate acquaintances and gruesome endings.

The thirteen killings-by-poison revisited in this book were committed by some of the most infamous murderers in British and American history. Presenting infamous cases from 1857 – 1972, Adrian Vincent recounts their sinister tales and reveals the lure of money, lust and deviancy that drove them to pure evil.

Some of the dark cases covered in this fascinating book include Dorothea Waddingham, better known as the Angel of Death, who ran a nursing home that did more than just care for the elderly, and Tillie Gburek, a so-called psychic who could accurately predict when people would die – because she’d already scheduled their murders.

A Gallery of Poisoners is classic true crime at its best — thrilling and disturbing in equal measure. Perfect for any fan of historical true crime!


‘A skilfully written account’ Kirkus Reviews

Adrian Vincent worked in Fleet Street for twenty-seven years, becoming managing editor of IPC’s educational magazines. He is the author of many books on art and antiques, novels and true crime.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History, Audiobook, Crime, Biography, Mystery

188 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 1994

Reviews

[Cleopatra Pullen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this collection of thirteen poisoners was a good way to round off a year that has seen me fascinated with the poisoner. Adrian Vincent has found a selection of those who chose poison as a way of getting rid of unwanted people in the UK and the US. This book was originally published in 1993 but has recently been republished by Endeavour Press.

Many of my favourites, including Florence Maybrick are included along with some that I hadn’t come across before. Each murderer, or more accurately suspected murderer is given a short chapter that goes into varying amounts of detail of their crime and punishment.

In order of appearance the poisoners featured are:
Frederick Seddon (1912)
Tillie Gburek (1921 USA)
Everitt Applegate and Mary Creighton (1936 USA)
Mrs Florence Maybrick (1889)
Jean Pierre Vaquier (1924)
Graham Young (1972)
Adeline Bartlett (1886)
Roland Molineux (1889 USA)
Harold Greenwood (1929)
Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen (1910)
Mary Ann Cotton (1873)
Madeline Smith (1857)
Nurse Waddingham (1936)

The author mentions famous expert witnesses, my favourite Bernard Spilsbury appears three of the trials and he also lists the crown prosecutor, the defence counsel and the judge in many of the trials. Sometimes an attorney who appears as junior counsel in one trial is promoted to become chief counsel at a later date, all of which a poisoner nerd like myself found fascinating. It’s like following these men through their careers as an aside to the individual crimes most of which were committed for love or money.

The author has a somewhat off-hand but insightful tone which I have to confess made me smile more than once, as illustration I am using his insight into Jean Pierre Vaquier, a new-to-me poisoner who struck in 1924 in Byfleet Surrey at the local tavern, the Blue Anchor.

Jean Pierre visits a chemist in London for strychnine which he claimed was for his wireless experiments:
‘But you will have to sign the poison book’
Vaquier signed the book J. Wanker, an odd choice for a false name. But it raised no eyebrows from Mr Bland, who gave Vaquier the strychnine without further comment.
Poor Mr Jones was found to have died of strychnine poisoning and Dr Carle informed the police. Our esteemed author summed up the questioning of Vaquier:
At this stage did Vaquier become alarmed by the questioning the police were taking? Not in the slightest. Finding himself in the limelight, Vaquier blossomed like a well-watered flower, happily posing for the photographers when he left the police station.

Adrian Vincent informs us that Vaquier practically took over his own defence when he came to the dock seemingly oblivious to Justice Avory’s pained looks and sums up:

It says much for British justice that all this nonsense was listened to in silence, rather than being greeted with howls of derision, as it might well have been elsewhere.

The only downside to such an array of poisoners is that although we have an outline of the cases, there is no deep analysis or thread that examines causes, details the forensic breakthroughs or examines changes in the law that has more or less consigned this method of murder to the history books. Nothing links the cases involved beyond the fact that all those featured either chose to, or were accused of, bumping someone off with poison, the top choice being good old arsenic.

I was lucky enough to be given a copy of this book by the publishers Endeavour Press. This review is my thanks to them and the author for a jolly romp through the poisoners that formerly walked the earth.

[Lauren Valentine · Rating 1 out of 5]

While this book and its cases are interesting, the vulgar language used to describe particularly the women made me feel dirty reading it. Saying a heavy set woman was “elephantine” and that “it was enough to kill a large animal let alone her” and equating another to “one of those pathetic bag ladies you see in London”. Vile.

[Vanya Prodanova · Rating 3 out of 5]

Малка и приятна за слушане/четене книжка, в която авторът разказва историите на известни престъпления, извършени чрез отрова. Някои ми бяха познати и вероятно на всеки чел книга, посветена на отрови, ще са му.

Стилът му на разказване беше странен и особен. Като да се опитва да пресъздаде усещането на времената, в които тези престъпления са извършени. На мен ми допадна, независимо, че на моменти някои коментари ми се сториха неподходящи, но историите бяха интересни.

Отделно, когато има интересна допълнителна литература за някой от случаите, я споделя, което намирам за изключително полезно, тъй като ти дава възможност ако искаш да задълбаеш в някой от случаите - да можеш да го направиш, Повечето случаи наистина бяха интересни, особено този за младия психопат, който искал просто да види как се отразява дадена отрова на човешкото тяло. Някак притеснително и успокояващо беше да видя, че правовата система и в миналото е функционирала толкова ненадеждно колкото и днес. Някои неща не се променят. :)

[River Wilde · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not only is the author fond of clichés, he's extremely nasty when describing people (including victims) and offers no nuance whatsoever. Everything is apparently horribly evil, disgusting and malevolent. This is why I'm not a big fan of this genre, it's often rather exploitative of horrible events and often sensationalistic. Maybe this book isn't nearly as horribly written as others of the same type, but it's still pretty terrible.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author recounts historical cases of poisoners. Interesting enough.

[Julie Morales · Rating 3 out of 5]

MURDEROUS POISON

This book was captivating. There were stories of lovers poisoning one another, crazy people poisoning their own children, people poisoning for money and some just to get rid of someone who became inconvenient for whatever reason. The stories were short but good. For many, the poison of choice was arsenic, although there was one of morphine and a few other poisons. Overall, not a bad book.

[Clued-in With A Book (Elvina Ulrich) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book talks about thirteen killings-by-poison true cases committed in Britain and America from 1857 - 1972. I have not heard any of these cases before (with the exception of 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑒𝑎𝑐𝑢𝑝 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑟) since these are old cases. This book is easy to read, and engaging with quite a lot of interesting facts about poisons.

[Eva Müller · Rating 2 out of 5]

"He is surviving too long for my piece (sic) of mind." If Graham had given more attention to his spelling and less to his books on poison, none of this might ever have happened.

This book says exactly what it says on the tin. It tells you about poisoners. It does not do one bit more. There is no focus on a specific aspect of the cases (e.g. how forensics was used to solve them). Sometimes the author gives a bit more detail about the lives of the killers and the victims, sometimes he doesn't.
The only red thread that connects the cases is the poison and that's a weak one. The cases are vastly different: murders for love, for money, for the thrill, cases that ended with a conviction, cases where the killer got away, open-and-shut-cases, cases where the question of guilt is still discussed... In those, the author always gives his own take on the subject and while I'm not saying he's wrong but from all I know he researched just enough about those cases to write a 10-15 page summary on them and that makes me not very inclined to trust him.
It also can't be used as a good jumping-off point to find out more since he rarely mentions any further reading.
Lastly, the proof-reader must have fallen asleep halfway through the book because the further you get the more blanks are either missing or in the wrong place.

[Melisende · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice (if that's the right word) selection of poisoners over a period of 100 years (c.1873 - 1972). Mix of both male and female protagonists, with a mix of motives (sex, money, revenge, greed) to a variety of poisons used. Some where singular crimes of passion, others serialised and conducted with cold indifference.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and yet it seems repetitive. I like how each story is kind of summarized for me and I would like to have a mixture of the ways but with the exception of two poisons they are all done the same way..

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Lacey Conrad · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author seems to think being fat is a character flaw and is not even sympathetic to the victims. DNF.

[Juli Rahel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been drowning myself in beautiful Magical Realism, Fantasy and Fairytales lately, but then found myself craving some fun and quick non-fiction, the kind of book that cleanses your palate a bit but also gives you something fun and scandalous. And I found that cleanser in A Gallery of Poisoners. Who doesn't want to while away the lazy hours of the day by reading about Victorian poisoners and their scandalous court cases? Thanks to Endeavour Press and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

A Gallery of Poisoners was originally published in 1993 but was republished by Endeavour Press on November last year. I wonder whether it would have made a timely Christmas present... surely an ominous one. Poisoners have always held a certain fascination with people. Perhaps it is the subterfuge that usually goes along with it, the idea of the murderer calmly sitting opposite their victim as they drink the poisoned wine or eat the poisoned cake. In the thirteen cases described by Vincent in A Gallery of Poisoners we get exactly the images we want, the lover who has to be dispatched before he causes a scandal, the husband-killing wife, the husband who gets sick of his nagging wife. The list also includes both very well-known murder cases, such as Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, and more unknown yet equally fascinating ones. Just for these arguably over-the-top stories, A Gallery of Poisoners is a fun read, giving the reader exactly what they want. If these cases weren't historically true, they would be almost too cliche to be believable.

As the book's subtitle points out, A Gallery of Poisoners actually focuses on 'case histories of murder by poisoning'. Although this may seems like just a fancy way to say 'stories about poisoners', it actually reveals more about the content of the book than you may expect. Vincent doesn't just give dramatic, and potentially fictionalised, retellings of the lead up to and the actual poisonings, he also focuses on the trials afterwards. By doing so, he grounds his book in history and facts, thereby also giving himself the liberty to speculate here and there. Throughout reading the different cases it becomes fun to track different people, whether it was a junior counsel or the crown prosecutors, from one case to another, seeing them both succeed and fail at defending their clients, getting promoted or demoted, etc. (Most notable here is Edward Marshall Hall.) Also interesting is the way in which Vincent considers both gender and class in the novel, hopping between America and England to show the fates of victims, murderers and bystanders. He especially shows awareness of the circumstances of women in Victorian England, with their small means and curtailed opportunities. Although he never excuses any of the murderers, he is also not blind to external pressures which prevents A Gallery of Poisoners from becoming sensationalist.

Vincent's writing style is very direct and to the point. Often the cases start with who gets murdered, which means suspense is not exactly a big aspect of A Gallery of Poisoners. However, the way Vincent speculates as to motives and means is interesting, and he does it with an off-hand humour which often surprised me into laughter. Throughout A Gallery of Poisoners Vincent drops in his own two cents here and there, commenting on the tactics of the poisoners, their missteps, the courtroom antics of defendants or the general state of British law. While each case history is fascinating, I would not recommend trying to sit down and read all of them at once. Although possible, eventually a sense of repetition does set in. Vincent does his best, but it is more fun to read a story here and there.

A Gallery of Poisoners is a quick and interesting read. It gives some fascinating insights into both murder cases of the past as well as the court cases that followed. Reading the book in one sitting may be a bit dull, but to dip in now and then and read a story or two is exactly the kind of fun you may need. I'd recommend this to fans of historical fiction and murder mysteries.

[Jess N · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, the information contained within this book is interesting and some of which I've not heard before. Great detail about the before/during and aftermath of the poisonings was included which helped with understanding the various situations.

All that said, the narration is sub-par at best. The narrators cadence is horrid for this type of book. Their voice goes up, as if to emphasize a point, when in fact it should be level since there is no point being emphasized but rather throughout the entire book most often it is a plain statement and should have no extra emphasis. When there should be added emphasis for the readers/listeners benefit, there is none. In fact, for the vast majority of the book, it sounds as if they are putting emphasis merely on EVERY sentence. And at the wrong points.

As a critique of the book layout as a whole, since we are listening to it being read, there is no defined chapter breaks. This again, has a major impact on the listener attempting to separate stories with no defined break. The narration does not help with this issue. They treat it as if it's one long story-same people, same incident-when it's the exact opposite.

I do not recommend this for anyone hoping to have a pleasant listen. You will be disappointed.

[Swords & Spectres · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Gallery of Poisoners follows takes the reader through thirteen cases of historical murder via poisoning. Each account is written in an easy to follow, very enjoyable to read summary of the people involved, motives, events both obvious and underlying, and a brief look at the time the people lived in.

This book was written in the early nineties and, as such, language/views of the time creep in. There's an instance of the author making light of a woman's weight and saying such things as 'the man could have done better as, by all accounts she wasn't much of a looker'. Such things do sound crass and unenjoyable to read or hear, but they are mercifully few.

On the whole, the book gives a detailed look at how people went about their poisoning, what made them think they could get away with it, and how each case was unravelled at the time.

For anyone who enjoys true crime, history, or a healthy mix of the two, this book is certainly one you should pick up. It's very well researched and, the audio version is incredibly well narrated. I practically inhaled this one. My main critique would be that I wish it were longer.

[Eowynselixure_book Love · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently poisoning was seems as a middle to upper class crime. So when a poor person died of symptoms of poisoning in the 19th to early 20th century, the doctors first diagnosis of the cause of death was rarely poison.

This was because storage of food was typically not good amongst the lower classes and hot weather and poverty often meant that food was spoiled before being consumed which did lead to death by gastric causes more often that not and the symptoms of poisoning could be identical. Also these people often had little to no money so it wasn't considered likely that murder would be the cause of their deaths.

This book blew me away. Some of these cases are harrowing and totally unbelievable. The ease with which you could obtain poisons in those times was unbelievable as well.

Also in a time where you couldn't identify absolutely who killed whom and why, a lot of the cases were mysterious and difficult to prove or disprove

All in all a fascinating yet harrowing book

[Sean Murphy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The main reason to give this book a miss is the author's appalling, misogynistic attitude to women. He describes the women in relation to their size and looks, whether victims or murderers.

If that doesn't put you off, then there's the spelling mistakes, poor grammar and numerous examples of tautology. This person is not a good writer.

The final reason to look elsewhere for your fix of poison related true crime is the lack of close examination of the cases: motivation, investigation, forensics, trials etc. You'd be better off reading the chapter titles and doing your own investigation.

I did finish it and I did do a bit of further reading about the most interesting cases.

[Becki D · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really disliked the misogynistic way the author talked about women & girls. It wrecked the whole book. I hated how the arthor referred to a growth man grooming and abusing a 14 year old girl as "couple happily had sex" gross beside the drugged wife of the pedo. The whole way the author framed was gross as if the child was a happy equal participant in the affair rather than a groomed child. The author also wrote in very demeaning tone to deacribe women, especially a large woman as "elephantine" & "it was enough to kill a large animal let alone her" and referring to "one those pathetic bag ladies you see around London

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Listened to the audiobook as it was free. Meh.
Not surprised at all to learn the author's a man. He went in REAL hard on the fat shaming and making sure the reader knows that a victorian era killer is ugly(only if they're female).
He literally uses words like "elephantine" to describe a woman who was OVER 200 POUNDS. Can you imagine?! No mention of her height....Completely irrelevant to the story, and we never hear comments on a male's appearance. How much did Dr. Crippen weigh?
He should've done more research, figured out what the through line of the damn book was, and focus on facts when writing a nonfiction book- not opinions and irrelevant, subjective details

[Nichola · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a weird one for me because I recognised almost all of the cases but I didn't really learn much in this? A few of the cases were a bit new but most were familiar.

What felt very odd in this book was the moralising of the author. I know it's difficult to keep your opinion to yourself when writing but this felt a little excessive.

I am never comfortable with a man throwing around terms like slut. Whore makes more sense bit slut is a word that carries weight and its just easy to think you can use it without any form of consequence. Which is just icky.

[Ilana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting short stories about poisoners, from the 19th century on. It outlines the reasons and methods, from people with obvious mental troubles to betrayed in love or those looking to improve their wealth or social status. Written simply, using a journalistic style and based on rich information, including from the newspapers of the time. An informative lecture.
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook. The narrator does nothing for the book and the author makes comments that, in my opinion, are unnecessary. The author talks too much about looks and weight. Leaving out those details wouldn't have taken away from the story so I think they were unnecessary. I will point out that the book was written in a time that those comments were more commonplace but I still did not like it.

[K P Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched!

Interesting to read, some new cases and some I already knew, yet still the author had greatly researched his subject as there was lots of new information on the cases I previously had knowledge of. Thank you for an informative and entertaining read, if murder can be described as entertaining that is!

[gloria thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting

I found this book very entertaining. It gave a concise story of 13 real poisoners. I've read a ton of British mysteries and often read a reference to Dr. Crippen but I had never known the facts of this case until I read this book. Some of these stories would qualify as The Worlds Dummist Criminals.
Very entertaining!

[Paula Corregan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book!

This book details various cases of murder by poison in England, the United States and Scotland. There were a few spelling errors in the book. I highly recommend this book to other true crime readers.

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh, it was a time killer and my true crime brain new a lot of the info already. It was passable and written in an easy to read style. Every now and then, though, the author's own opinions would pop out and, as this was rare in the book, they read as strangely vindictive.

[Lucii Dixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read, very informative. Though I would have preferred if the dates of these incidents was mentioned at the beginning and not just half way through. It sometimes got me confused.

Some great piece of writing, easy to follow and descriptive. Brilliant was true crime fans.

[Nagelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok...but

An interesting read but I can’t say that I liked all of the writer’s style. There seemed to be some biases placed within the chapters on certain characters. More a personal telling than a strictly factual read.

[Dian Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taken from many actual cases it was an interesting read. The author used as many authentic sources as possible and didn't just focus on the grotesque nature of the crime but, when possible, discussed motives and testimony from court records.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good read! I enjoyed this one, and the many cases that I had not heard about before. Some I had already read about, but there are several new ones here. There are some great ones here.

Fantastic!

[Lindsay]

Such awful Audible narration I DNF after about an hour of listening. Terrible accents and intonation. Shame, because the actual stories were quite interesting although you didn’t know if you were listening to fact or fiction.