Perfume Books

"Where should one use perfume?", a young woman asked. "Wherever one wants to be kissed", I said.

Coco Chanel The New Quotable Woman (p. 276)

The Library has a variety of books on most subjects. Quite often, you can approach a topic through reading fiction and nonfiction books. Below you will find books about the allure and history of perfume.

Nonfiction
The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and Science of Smell
Author is a biophysicist who uses his theory of olfaction to design new fragrances.
The Emperor of Scent : a Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses
A portrait of the secretive and Byzantine perfume industry.
Essence and Alchemy
Treatise on the history and making of perfume.
Scented Palace : the Secret History of Marie Antoinette's Perfumer

The author, a professor at the Versailles School of Perfumers, draws on the papers of perfumer Jean-Louis Fargeon to reveal the secrets of his luxurious creations for Marie Antoinette.

Fiction
Perfume: the Story of a Murderer
A murderous perfumer of decadent eighteenth-century France wants to isolate the most perfect scent of all, the scent of life itself.
Madame Mirabou's School of Love
As newly divorced Nikki tries to find herself, her old dream of making perfume as a business instead of a hobby infuses her with purpose.
Crimson Petal and the White
In this bawdy, brilliant novel, a prostitute in Victorian England is taken up by a wealthy man, the perfumer William Rackham, and she must balance financial security against the obvious servitude of her position.

For more reading recommendations, please see the Good Reads Historical Fiction and Historical Romance lists.