 Book Reviews
with Robin Osborne
Nelson's Purse
By Martyn Downer
Bantam $59.95
199 years ago this week, Horatio Nelson was killed aboard HMS Victory in the battle of Trafalgar. His personal effects included a compass, a final letter to his mistress, Emma Hamilton, and a leather pouch containing $12,000 in today's money (that soon disappeared).
There was also a woven green silk purse with some gold and silver coins, pictured on the cover of this highly-recommended for Christmas hardback. Passed on to Lord Nelson's best friend, Alexander Davison, who secreted them in a leather despatch box, they would not be found until 2002 when the author, the jewellery expert at Sotheby's auction house, was confronted by a priceless anchor-shaped diamond brooch bearing the initials of 'Britain's greatest naval hero'.
So began this blend of historical detective story and Master & Commander-style naval epic - lushly illustrated, unputdownable.
A Life by Design
By Siobhan O'Brien
Allen & Unwin $24.95
Florence Broadhurst's lush wallpaper and fabric designs are having a huge resurgence, but their creator's background was anything but grand: born in outback Queensland she won local fame with her eisteddfod singing. At 23, with a musical drag-act, the 'Smart Set Diggers', she went to Shanghai and reinvented herself as a posh Englishwoman, running a culture academy.
In London, as 'Madam Pellier', she ran a successful Mayfair dress salon, later moving to Sydney to help her rich husband manage a trucking firm. Then the flamboyant artist began designing wallpapers and become a darling of the interior design set.
At 77 Broadhurst was murdered in her Paddington workshop, a crime so awful that police have reopened it for investigation. Yet her gorgeous designs live on, doing better than ever.
The Killer Bean of Calabar
By Peter Macinnes
Allen & Unwin $24.95
Science writer/teacher Macinnes penned an earlier book of local relevance - Bittersweet, The Story of Sugar, a well researched and written tale 'full of ripping yarns and acts of bastardry,' and his follow-up about far more toxic substances is another intriguing work.
Ranging from some of history's best and least known poisoners through to poisonous work places, chemical warfare and the deadly bean of the title, grown in Africa and used to test the honesty, or otherwise, of people accused of witchcraft, it abounds in fine trivia.
When Capt Cook's crew tried cycad seeds they had a 'hearty fit of vomiting and purging' but noticed that pigs who ate them survived... until a week later when two hogs died and the rest were saved only 'with difficulty'.
Covering topics as diverse as Japan's deadly fugu fish, Sherlock Holmes' insights and the role of disinfectants in controlling bacteria, this is popular science at its best.
- Books reviewed are available at Book Warehouse, Keen Street, Lismore.
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