120 Year Old Copy of, “The Trial of Eugène Marie Chantrelle”

The Trial of Eugène Marie Chantrelle (1878)

Printed by William Hodge and Company. Glasgow and Edinburgh, 1906.

A chilling Victorian murder case involving poison, deception, and a deadly insurance scheme. Eugène Chantrelle, a French teacher living in Edinburgh, was accused of murdering his wife, Elizabeth, by secretly administering opium and attempting to disguise her death as an accidental gas leak. Just months earlier, he had taken out a £1,000 accident insurance policy on her life. The sensational trial exposed a deeply troubled marriage, threats of murder, and a calculated plot for financial gain. Chantrelle was convicted and executed in 1878, becoming one of Scotland’s most notorious Victorian poisoners.

The case was so infamous that Chantrelle has even been suggested as a possible inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, although that connection remains unproven.