Rare Book School was recently featured in a Washington Post article about “poison books.” The story included pictures of RBS staff member Barbara Heritage and RBS faculty member Todd Pattison in UVA Shannon Library’s McGregor Room (affectionately known as the “Harry Potter Room,” right down the hall from our offices). 

Pattison, who taught an RBS course on nineteenth-century American bookbindings in Charlottesville in mid-July, talked with the Post about his collection of rare books that contain arsenic. Students taking his course were able to see his “poison books” up close. According to Pattison, “We look at them differently and take special care, but it’s a great reminder we still have so much to learn about these cultural artifacts.”

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