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Four books have been removed from France’s national library due to concerns that their covers may contain poisonous arsenic.

The nineteenth-century volumes, all printed in Britain, have emerald green covers. Arsenic was widely used to color books at the time.

The texts removed from the shelves were identified as potentially dangerous by University of Delaware researchers.

The library stated that handling the books would cause only minor harm.

 “We have put these works in quarantine and an external laboratory will analyze them to evaluate how much arsenic is present in each volume,” said a spokesperson for the National Library of France.

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The four books include the Royal Horticultural Society’s book from 1862-1863, two volumes of Edward Hayes’ “The Ballads of Ireland” from 1855, and Henry Stanley’s 1856 bilingual anthology of Romanian poetry.

The Poison Book Project compiled a list of potentially hazardous titles. The initiative is led by University of Delaware researchers in collaboration with Delaware’s Winterthur Museum.

Since 2019, the team has tested hundreds of book covers for heavy metals, compiling a list of potentially dangerous titles.

Four of the copies on the list were in the National Library of France’s collection of over 16 million books.

Arsenic was used by Victorian publishers to color book bindings in pigments such as Â鶹APP Green, Emerald Green, and Scheele’s Green, which was named after a German-born chemist.

The Poison Book Project warns that books laced with the toxin should be stored with caution and may pose a health risk to those who handle them.

Following the discovery of some affected titles in its collection, the National Library of France stated that it would also investigate other books “beyond the Poison Book Project list”.

The World Health Organization warns against long-term exposure to arsenic from drinking water and food, stating that the substance is “highly toxic in its inorganic form”. They do not provide any specific instructions for handling items containing it.

Following the discovery of some affected titles in its collection, the National Library of France stated that it would also investigate other books “beyond the Poison Book Project list”.

The World Health Organization warns against long-term exposure to arsenic from drinking water and food, stating that the substance is “highly toxic in its inorganic form”. They give no specific instructions for handling items containing it.