The Lost Apothecary

Published in 2021, The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner is a contemporary novel with limbs in both the historical and mystery fiction genres. Penner, though a corporate associate until the release of this book, belongs to both the Historical Novel Society and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. She draws on both these affiliations to chronicle feminine agency at its most relentless and unconventional, offering a cross-century tale that undermines the patriarchal structures that actively and passively harm women of all eras. Readers have found that the character Nella parallels 17th-century Italian poisoner Giulia Tofana, who sold poisons in Naples and Rome to women who desired freedom from their abusive husbands. This is one of many ways the novel’s modern publication date belies its historical resonance, as the book calls back to the deeply gendered social structures of 18th-century London, contrasting them with present-day experiences of gender and society. Penner’s novel debuted at #7 on the New York Times Best Sellers List. This study guide refers to the hardcover edition published by Park Row Books, an imprint of Harlequin Books.

Plot Summary

The novel toggles between an 18th-century and present-day timeline, also alternating between the first-person narration of three characters. It follows the stories of apothecary Nella Clavinger, young housemaid Eliza Fanning, and London tourist Caroline Parcewell. All three stories, in their convergent and divergent points, speak to the themes of betrayal, feminine power, and secrecy.

In 1791, London, 41-year-old apothecary Nella Clavinger prepares for the daybreak arrival of her latest client. Though the shop, located at 3 Back Alley, once belonged to her late mother and only distributed reputable cures for women’s maladies, Nella now sells poisons to women who would like to kill the harmful men in their lives. Nella’s chosen path has restyled the nature of her mother’s shop, but she holds fast to her own two rules: (1) the poison must never be used to harm another woman, and (2) the names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in Nella’s calfskin register. In the morning Nella meets Eliza Fanning, who purchases two raw eggs, spiked with nux vomica, on behalf of her mistress; Mrs. Amwell plans to murder her husband for incapacitating Eliza with liquor and attempted to rape her. Eliza admits that though Mrs. Amwell developed the idea to kill Mr. Amwell, Eliza is the one who recommended they do it at a seemingly innocuous breakfast mealtime. Nella sells Eliza the poisonous eggs, tucked in a jar with the image of a bear, and they part.

The next day Eliza successfully poisons Mr. Amwell, but as soon as he passes, she has her first period. Disturbed by the blood, she believes it to be Mr. Amwell’s act of revenge. Two days after Mr. Amwell’s death, Nella receives an enigmatic message from a woman requesting a toxic aphrodisiac; she presumes it will be used against the requester’s husband. Eliza returns to Nella’s shop hoping that Nella can provide her something to expel Mr. Amwell’s spirit. But Nella denies the existence of phantoms and implies that Eliza is just imagining his ghost, as well as that of a young, alleged victim of his named Johanna, who is said to have died in the house while carrying Mr. Amwell’s baby. When Eliza fails to garner Nella’s help this way, she asks to remain in the shop as an apprentice so that she will not have to return to the haunted Amwell estate. Nella refuses at first but realizes that her mysterious physical illness makes it difficult for her to portion her client’s aphrodisiac powder into the required jar. She also gifts Eliza a book of magic spells to set her mind at ease about the spirits haunting her; inside the cover is the address to a shop that sells books on magic.

Nella’s latest client is the very wealthy Lady Beatrice Clarence of Carter Lane, immediately characterized as arrogant and entitled. She takes Eliza to be Nella’s daughter and expresses her fervent wish to have a child of her own, confessing that she and her husband have had a difficult time conceiving. The woman corrects Nella’s assumption that the powder is intended to eliminate her husband, revealing that she plans to kill his mistress, Miss Berkwell. Hearing this, Nella refuses to sell the woman the powder. Lady Clarence tries to take the powder by force, but Nella throws it into the fire. Lady Clarence, outraged, threatens to expose Nella to the authorities if she does not remake the powder by the following day. Though Nella initially resists the notion, appalled at the thought of poisoning another woman, Eliza points out that, with the names her register holds, Lady Clarence’s threat puts former clients at risk. On their trip to collect the specimen, Nella reveals what precipitated her poison-selling: the betrayal of her former lover Frederick. Frederick was, unbeknownst to Nella, married; once Nella fell pregnant, Frederick secretly poisoned her to induce an abortion. Frederick’s wife Rissa, sick of his cheating, requested poison to murder him, a request that Nella granted. In the morning Nella and Eliza return to the shop. Lady Clarence returns, and Nella hands the poison, packed in a jar by Eliza, to her. Eliza leaves the shop and visits the magic bookstore her gifted tome is from. There, she meets a teenaged boy named Tom Pepper, develops a crush on him, and gains a new book with a spell called Tincture to Reverse Bad Fortune.

Meanwhile, Lady Clarence returns to Nella’s shop in a panic, telling her that Lord Clarence accidentally ingested the fatal toxin in place of Miss Berkwell. She also reveals that the jar the powder came in is engraved with the address of the store, as it is one of Nella’s mother’s jars from when the shop dealt only in cures. Lady Clarence had her maid hide the jar in the estate cellar until it is safe to retrieve it. Lady Clarence returns to her estate to get the jar while Nella fetches Eliza. Eliza is distraught over what she has done. Lady Clarence eventually returns the jar, and Nella and Eliza believe the situation to be resolved. Nella lets Eliza stay with her as the girl recovers from the emotional shock. Nella, at the market soon after, learns from a copy of the Thursday Bulletin that the authorities are looking for Lord Clarence’s murderer and that a Clarence estate maid came forward with a wax impression of the addressed jar. Nella returns to the shop, and she and Eliza plan to part; Nella intends to die by suicide in the Thames. Before they can separate, they are pursued by constables onto Blackfriars’ Bridge. There, Eliza drinks a brew that she mixed herself and placed in one of Nella’s blue vials, the Tincture to Reverse Bad Fortune. She is convinced it will save her. She jumps into the depths, and the constables assume that she was the apothecary killer. Nella goes free, but she feels herself on the brink of death as her physical ailments worsen. She goes back to the Amwell estate to tell Mrs. Amwell of Eliza’s death. While there, she sees Eliza in a window and believes her to be an apparition just before she loses consciousness.

In the present-day timeline, Caroline Parcewell, an Ohio-born farm administrator in her mid-30s, is in London on what was supposed to be a celebratory trip for her 10th wedding anniversary. She has recently learned of her husband James’s infidelity and decided to go on the trip without him to reassess her marriage. Further complicating her situation, Caroline has missed her period and thinks herself pregnant. She is invited to mudlark, or scrounge in the River Thames for artifacts, by an older British gentleman named Bachelor Alf. She soon finds a small blue vial engraved with only the craggy image of a bear on all fours. Bachelor Alf remarks that it looks like an apothecary’s vial but notes that no further conclusions can be drawn since the vial holds no names or addresses. He encourages Caroline to visit his daughter Gaynor at the British Library Maps Desk, which Caroline does.

Gaynor is also unable to tell her more about the vial, and Caroline leaves disappointed. In the middle of the night, Caroline wakes up to vomit, suspecting it to be morning sickness. To distract herself from the alarm that thought brings, she researches the vial. Using the words vial bear, she finds an early 19th-century hospital note that makes mention of “Bear Alley,” a location that still exists in London, an apothecary, and multiple murdered men. As she is conducting her research, she receives an email from James expressing his regret over their rifted marriage and warning of his unexpected, imminent arrival at 11 a.m. the following day. He would like to speak with her. Caroline, though vexed, plans to have the talk, but she intends to visit Bear Alley before James appears. She does so, finding that Bear Alley is now a clearing with shrubs obscuring a mysterious, rusty-handled door. She researches the location with Gaynor and discovers that Bear Alley juts off of an aisle called Back Alley.

Over lunch, James attempts to reconcile with Caroline, who is still hurt and refuses. Caroline waits until he falls asleep, then sneaks out and breaks into the property she found. She finds Nella’s shop and takes photos of it, particularly the late apothecary’s register. Back at the hotel, Caroline takes notes on the register she found and withholds all this new information from Gaynor. She writes down the line “quantity of non-poisons needed to kill.” This is also where she notices Eliza’s name in Nella’s register. James, sick with a cold, treats himself with Caroline’s eucalyptus oil. While Caroline is at a nearby cafe with Gaynor, discussing the fate of the apothecary killer, a wheezing James calls to tell her that he needs to go to the hospital. She returns to find him intensely sick on the bathroom floor of her hotel room. Paramedics come to take him away, but they notice the note Caroline has made on the quantity of non-poisons needed to kill.

At the hospital, two officers await Caroline for questioning. Gaynor calls Caroline mid-interrogation with information on the apothecary and, when Caroline asks her to come to the hospital, does so with no further context. There, she confirms what Caroline has been telling the officers, that her notes are harmless research and nothing more. Caroline is released from custody and goes to visit James in his room. He is recovered now and inadvertently reveals that he poisoned himself on purpose to force Caroline into a reconciliation. Caroline decides to completely divest herself of this man. She applies to Cambridge for a master’s degree and, at the British Library, does more research on Eliza. An article Caroline finds from The Brighton Press reveals that Eliza survived her jump from the bridge. She married Tom Pepper, birthed twins, and inherited her husband’s shop after his death; the interview also implies that Nella survived. This revelation of closure for Nella and Eliza aligns with the emotional resolution experienced by Caroline, and she throws Eliza’s vial back into the Thames, wanting to keep the details of these women’s stories to herself just a while longer.