Book!

There's a reality show in England that I wish was available over here. I might even spring for cable TV for the ability to watch it. It's about a Victorian Pharmacy.

The DVDs are not available for the US market, but they published a companion book which is supposed to be due out in November.

I have it in my gimpy little hands.

There's nothing in it that I don't already know, but it's filled with pictures! Lovely advertising from Victorian England, pictures of Victorian pharmacies, pictures of bottles of Victorian remedies, and pictures from the reality show.

I know there are people who will want this book for the information in it.

Me, I wanted it for the pictures!

See, I am setting up a time traveling steampunk medieval kind of apothecary/alchemist type shop. At the Oklahoma Steampunk Exposition, I will be sharing a booth with bevhale and I desperately wanted good quality photos of Victorian medications and things available in those pharmacies. This book delights me for that reason.

Sure, I have access to the bottles and jars of a real American apothecary's shop at one of the nearby antique stores, so I can see them in person. But one sample isn't enough. I wanted, quite greedily, more.

I have prints of paintings and ads from medieval apothecary shops and alchemy studios, so I have the early years covered, clear up to the Regency time period. I have original and reproduction herbals and material medicas and pharmacopoeias clear up to the early 1900's, but many of these lack the type of illustrations for which I was looking. I have photos of modern pharmacies (and what dull places they are in comparison!) and modern alchemy labs (also rather dull in comparison), so I have the modern era quite well covered.

I have lacked decent coverage of the Victorian era.

And now, I have at least some of it.

With this, I can design decent labels for my potions and lotions and concoctions of various sorts.

Things I will be making for the table include cosmetic, herbal, and alchemical items, as well as bottled curiosities such as jarred fairies, bottled monsters, lab experiments, smoking robots, and other relatively harmless items. I won't have anything toxic like Cadet's Fuming Liquid (which catches fire when exposed to air), Volatile Livers of Sulphur, Vitriolum Veneris cum Alkali Fixo Praecipitatum, Thion Hudor, Superolefiant Gas, Cullen's Solvent, Smoking Spirits of Libavius, or other such items.