Was Jane Austen Murdered?

In the late 1800's, Arsenic compounds were used as a stomache and general tonic "promoting appetite increasing the cardiac action the respiraory power and the intestinal secreation--stimulating peristalsis, exalting mental activity...." pg 116 Handbook of Materia Medica, Pharmacy, and Thereapeutics. 1891
Overdose likely, murder perhaps.

This wouldn't have slipped past the great Hercule Poirot!

But wasn't it also used in beauty products of the time as well. Some of those skin lightening treatments to try to hide freckles or other blemishes had some very toxic ingredients.

Yes very sad but one has to remember the times, in her time Ms. Austen was considered a social revolutionary for addressing through her writing the status of women, particularly the status of women being basically owned by men. In that time (and this is not that long ago really) a woman went from her father's home to her husband's home as something owned, and even as a widow she was to defer back to her father for guidance. In many states women were not allowed to own property and had to title it to a male relative, in families that did not have good men those women suffered. Sadder still, in some parts of the world nothing has changed for women and it's still that way.

And people were using arsenic as a pesticide, wood treatment and medicinal uses for eons... could have been unintentional...

How sad. She make a great contribution to the arts with her books. I always enjoyed them.

Back then, women also used an arsenic based powder to whiten their skin.

Daily life in the early 1800's. Arsenic was the least of their worries.

Interesting if true. Saying it does not make it so. I won't say it's beyond the bounds of possibility but I'd like to hear a bit more about motives, suspects snd additional evidence before I give this one too much credibility.

Who would have wanted Jane dead? I can't imagine.

Interesting way of drumming up publicity for a book...

In the period when Jane Austen died, just about anything had Arsenic on it, including some medicines. So even if she tested positive, it does not mean she was murdered. All this woman is doing is wanting to sell her new book “The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen.”

Back then, they used arsenic as black dye. Any mourner (or generic black-wearing lady) could have been poisoned as the arsenic seeps into her skin.

Could even have been lead poisoning. Pewter dinnerware was popular then and lead was one of the components.

Only if they knew then what we know now about arsenic. ANd a lot of other things. My father said his mother use to make him EAT Vicks vapor rub when he was sick. Lord knows what other dumb things she did. He died of leukemia at an early age as well as his brother. Hmmm??

...hurry Watson, the game is afoot!

Sounds like an interesting read.

I adore Jane Austen, practically know her books by heart, and have researched her life. Frankly, there wasn't much motive for anyone to murder her. She was, by the standards of her day, a middle-aged spinster, and although her novels sold reasonably well in her lifetime, she was no J.K. Rowlings -- she didn't have a lot of money. So we can rule out jealousy and greed as motives. There's no reason to think anyone hated her or had anything to gain by her death. I've read all of her and her family's remaining letters, and her family seemed to be very fond of her. She led a very retired life and few people outside her family saw her.

If arsenic poisoning was involved (and frankly, I doubt it), I'm sure it would have been accidental. Arsenic does have other uses other than as a murder weapon.

Just think of what she would have created had this common product not been in her life!

I'd like to know what family secrets could have led to murder. Was somebody afraid she'd write about them in one of her novels and embarrass them? She had a blunt way of writing for a woman in those days.