Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-277) and index.

Introduction -- Poison, poison, everywhere -- Poison from the banquet table to the royal underpants -- Unicorn horns and rooster dung : poison detectors and antidotes -- Dying to be beautiful : dangerous cosmetics -- Murderous medicine : mercury enemas and rat turd elixirs -- Putrid palaces : a poisoned environment -- The poison chronicles : where rumors of royal poisoning meet scientific analysis -- Henry VII of Luxembourg, Holy Roman Emperor, 1275-1313 -- Cangrande della Scala, Italian warlord, 1291-1329 -- Agnes Sorel, mistress of King Charles VII of France, 1422-1450 -- Edward VI, king of England, 1537-1553 -- Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, 1528-1572 -- Eric XIV, King of Sweden, 1533-1577 -- Ivan IV, the Terrible, Czar of Russia, 1530-1584; his mother, Elena Glinskaya, ca. 1510-1538; and his first wife, Anastasia Romanovna, 1530-1560 -- Grand Duke Francesco de Medici of Tuscany, 1541-1587, and Grand Duchess Bianca Cappello, 1548-1587 -- Gabrielle d'Estrees, mistress of King Henri IV of France, 1573-1599 -- Tycho Brahe, astronomer and imperial mathematician, 1546-1601 -- Michelangelo de Merisi, known as Caravaggio, artist to Italy's elite, 1572-1610 -- Henry Stuart, prince of Wales, 1594-1612 -- Sir Thomas Overbury, royal adviser at the court of James I, 1581-1613 -- Princess Henrietta Stuart of England, Duchesse d'Orleans, 1644-1670 -- Mademoiselle de Fontanges, mistress of Louis XIV of France, 1661-1680, and the affair of the poisons -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, imperial court musician, 1756-1791-- Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, 1769-1821 -- Poison in the modern era -- Scientific advances in the Victorian age -- The democratization of poison -- Modern medicis : the rebirth of political poison -- Pick your poison -- The poison hall of fame.