The Ashmole Box
1646, Lichfield. Elias Ashmole returns exhausted to what was once his home town, humiliated by the defeat of the Royalists at Worcester. Ashmole is an intellectual and a scientist, but he also dabbles in alchemy and mysticism. Ashmole is approached by an unsavoury character, who claims to have discovered treasure in one of the tunnels dug during the last siege of Lichfield. Ashmole is lured by the possibilities of treasure, but the two men’s attempt to recover it has catastrophic and far-reaching consequences.
1776, Lichfield again. Richard Greene, a 60-year-old apothecary and surgeon obsessed with his renowned collection of antique relics and curios, is presented with a carved wooden box discovered by Greene’s close friend Lionel Blomefield, a retired clergyman. The box contains two handwritten sheets, signed by Elias Ashmole, along with a number of mysterious artefacts, none of which offers an immediate explanation as to the message the long-dead man wanted to convey. While Greene tries to unravel the mystery of the box, he faces his own challenges of corruption, deceit, greed and untold cruelty, which he does with his usual integrity, compassion and passion.
What I enjoyed most about this book is the characterisation of not just Greene, but also his long-suffering but loyal wife Theodosia, along with the Blomefields, Greene’s cousin Samuel Johnson, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward, to name but a few of the dignitaries who Anson brings to life with such panache.
This is book three in the Apothecary Greene trilogy and can be read as a standalone. I said in my review of The Bishop’s Grimoire (HNR 99) that I couldn’t recommend the book enough. I have no hesitation in repeating that for The Ashmole Box.
