Poison books: Hong Kong joins the search for Victorian-era arsenic-laced tomes

In early September 2025, Lesley Liu, head of preservation and conservation at the University of Hong Kong Libraries, carefully surveyed the institution’s collection of rare Western books from the Victorian era (1837–1900).

Recent research had made her acutely aware that within these cloth bindings, a century-old danger could be hidden within fingertip’s reach.

She was on the lookout for titles that matched a growing online database of “poison books”: book bindings known to contain substances...