Anthropodermic bibliopegy

A book bound in the skin of the murderer William Burke, on display in Surgeons' Hall Museum in Edinburgh

Anthropodermic bibliopegy is the practice of binding books in human skin. As of May 2019, The Anthropodermic Book Project^[1] has examined 31 out of 50 books in public institutions supposed to have anthropodermic bindings, of which 18 have been confirmed as human and 13 have been demonstrated to be animal leather instead.^[2]

Terminology[]

'Bibliopegy' (/ˌbɪbliˈɒpɪdʒi/ BIB-lee-OP-i-jee) is a rare^[3][a] synonym for 'bookbinding'. It combines the Ancient Greek βιβλίον (biblion, "book") and πηγία (pegia, from pegnynai, "to fasten").^[5] The earliest reference in the Oxford English Dictionary dates from 1876; Merriam-Webster gives the date of first use as c. 1859^[6] and the OED records an instance of 'bibliopegist' for a bookbinder from 1824.

The word 'anthropodermic' (/ˌænθroʊpəˈdɜːrmɪk/ AN-throh-pə-DUR-mik), combining the Ancient Greek ἄνθρωπος (anthropos, "man" or "human") and δέρμα (derma, "skin"), does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary and appears to be unused in contexts other than bookbinding. The phrase "anthropodermic bibliopegy" has been used at least since Lawrence S. Thompson's article on the subject, published in 1946.^[7] The practice of binding a book in the skin of its author – as with The Highwayman – has been called 'autoanthropodermic bibliopegy'^[8] (from αὐτός, autos, meaning "self").

History[]

A 17th-century book on female virginity in the Wellcome Library, rebound in human skin by Dr. Ludovic Bouland around 1865

An early reference to a book bound in human skin is found in the travels of Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach. Writing about his visit to Bremen in 1710:

(We also saw a little duodecimo, Molleri manuale præparationis ad mortem. There seemed to be nothing remarkable about it, and you couldn't understand why it was here until you read in the front that it was bound in human leather. This unusual binding, the like of which I had never before seen, seemed especially well adapted to this book, dedicated to more meditation about death. You would take it for pig skin.)

— translated by Lawrence S. Thompson, Religatum de Pelle Humana^[9]

During the French Revolution, there were rumours that a tannery for human skin had been established at Meudon outside Paris.^[10] The Carnavalet Museum owns a volume containing the French Constitution of 1793 and Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen described as 'passing for being made in human skin imitating calf'.^[10]

The majority of well-attested anthropodermic bindings date from the 19th century.

Examples[]

Possible human skin binding in the Smithsonian Libraries

Bound in 1863 by Josse Schavye,^[11] the same binder of the genuine anthropodermic Vesalius' De Humani Corporis Fabrica in Brown University,^[12] and who bound at least four books with human leather in his lifetime.^[13]

Panel with Latin inscription in the book: Hic liber femineo corio convestitus est ("This book has been bound with the skin of a woman")^[14]

Criminals[]

Surviving examples of human skin bindings have often been commissioned, performed, or collected by medical doctors, who have access to cadavers, sometimes those of executed criminals, such as the case of John Horwood in 1821 and William Corder in 1828.^[15] The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh preserves a notebook bound in the skin of the murderer William Burke after his execution and subsequent public dissection by Professor Alexander Monro in 1829.^[16] (Note that Horwood, Corder, and Burke were all hanged and not flayed.)

What Lawrence Thompson called "the most famous of all anthropodermic bindings" is exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum, titled The Highwayman: Narrative of the Life of James Allen alias George Walton. It is by James Allen, who made his deathbed confession in prison in 1837 and asked for a copy bound in his own skin to be presented to a man he once tried to rob and admired for his bravery, and another one for his doctor.^[17] Once he died, a piece of his back was taken to a tannery and utilized for the book.^[18]

Dance of Death[]

An exhibition of fine bindings at the Grolier Club in 1903 included, in a section of 'Bindings in Curious Materials', three editions of Holbein's 'Dance of Death' in 19th-century human skin bindings;^[19] two of these now belong to the John Hay Library at Brown University. Other examples of the Dance of Death include an 1856 edition offered at auction by Leonard Smithers in 1895^[20] and an 1842 edition from the personal library of Florin Abelès was offered at auction by Piasa of Paris in 2006. Bookbinder Edward Hertzberg describes the Monastery Hill Bindery having been approached by "[a]n Army Surgeon ... with a copy of Holbein's Dance of Death with the request that we bind it in a piece of human skin, which he brought along."^[21]

Other examples[]

Another tradition, with less supporting evidence, is that books of erotica^{[22][23] [24]} have been bound in human skin.

A female admirer of the French astronomer Camille Flammarion supposedly bequeathed her skin to bind one of his books. At Flammarion's observatory, there is a copy of his La pluralité des mondes habités on which is stamped reliure en peau humaine 1880 ("human skin binding, 1880").^[25] This story is sometimes told instead about Les terres du ciel and the donor named as the Comtesse de Saint-Ange.

The Newberry Library in Chicago owns an Arabic manuscript written in 1848, with a handwritten note that it is bound in human skin, though "it is the opinion of the conservation staff that the binding material is not human skin, but rather highly burnished goat". This book is mentioned in the novel The Time Traveler's Wife, much of which is set in the Newberry.^[26]

The National Library of Australia holds a 19th-century poetry book with the inscription "Bound in human skin" on the first page.^[27] The binding was performed 'before 1890' and identified as human skin by pathologists in 1992.^[28]

A portion of the binding in the copy of Dale Carnegie's Lincoln the Unknown that is part of Temple University's Charles L. Blockson Collection was "taken from the skin of a Negro at a Baltimore Hospital and tanned by the Jewell Belting Company".^[29]

Identification[]

The identification of human skin bindings has been attempted by examining the pattern of hair follicles, to distinguish human skin from that of other animals typically used for bookbinding, such as calf, sheep, goat, and pig. This is a necessarily subjective test, made harder by the distortions in the process of treating leather for binding. Testing a DNA sample is possible in principle, but DNA can be destroyed when skin is tanned, degrades over time, and can be contaminated by human readers.^[30]

Instead, peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) have recently been used to identify the material of bookbindings. A tiny sample is extracted from the book's covering and the collagen analysed by mass spectrometry to identify the variety of proteins which are characteristic of different species. PMF can identify skin as belonging to a primate; since monkeys were almost never used as a source of skin for bindings, this implies human skin.

The Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia owns five anthropodermic books, confirmed by peptide mass fingerprinting in 2015,^[31] of which three were bound from the skin of one woman.^[32] This makes it the largest collection of such books in one institution. The books can be seen in the associated Mütter Museum.

The John Hay Library at Brown University owns four anthropodermic books, also confirmed by PMF:^[33] Vesalius's De Humani Corporis Fabrica, two nineteenth-century editions of Holbein's Dance of Death, and Mademoiselle Giraud, My Wife (1891).

Three books in the libraries of Harvard University have been reputed to be bound in human skin, but peptide mass fingerprinting has confirmed only one,^[34] Des destinées de l'ame by Arsène Houssaye], held in the Houghton Library.^[35] (The other two books at Harvard were determined to be bound in sheepskin, the first being Ovid's Metamorphoses,^[36] held in the Countway Library, the second being a treatise on Spanish law, Practicarum quaestionum cirva leges regias Hispaniae,^[37] held in the library of Harvard Law School.^[38])

The Harvard skin book belonged to Dr Ludovic Bouland of Strasbourg (died 1932), who rebound a second, De integritatis & corruptionis virginum notis,^[39] now in the Wellcome Library in London. The Wellcome also owns a notebook labelled as bound in the skin of 'the Negro whose Execution caused the War of Independence', presumably Crispus Attucks, but the library doubts that it is actually human skin.

Confirmed examples[]

Confirmed by peptide mass fingerprinting show

Book (sort by year of publication)	Location (sort by country)	Provenance (sort by year of binding)	Binding and photographs
De humani corporis fabrica by Andreas Vesalius (1568)	Providence Brown University, John Hay Library, RARE 1-SIZE QM21 .V37 1568	Bound in 1867 by Josse Schavye of Brussels for the Paris International Exposition
The Dance of death by Hans Holbein (1816)	Providence Brown University, John Hay Library, N7720.H6 A43 1816	Bound in 1893 by Joseph William Zaehnsdorf (1853–1930) of London (son of Joseph Zaehnsdorf).
The Dance of death by Hans Holbein (1898)	Providence Brown University, John Hay Library, N7720.H6 D5x 1898	Bound between 1898 and 1903[40] by Alfred J. Cox (1835–1909) of Chicago and owned by Harry Selfridge	Decorated with arrows, death's heads, and knucklebones
Mademoiselle Giraud, my wife by Adolphe Belot (1891) (English translation of Mademoiselle Giraud, ma femme, 1870)	Providence Brown University, John Hay Library, PQ2193.B7 M313 1891
Recueil des secrets by Louise Bourgeois Boursier (1601)	Philadelphia College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Historical Medical Library, Ga 168	Bound in 1887 by Dr John Stockton Hough with skin he had removed from the thigh of Mary Lynch, who died in 1869 of trichinosis in Blockley Almshouse, Philadelphia	Photograph (left)
Les nouvelles découvertes sur toutes les parties principales de l'homme, et de la femme by Louis Barles (1680)	Philadelphia College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Historical Medical Library, GGa 53b	Bound in 1887 by Dr John Stockton Hough with skin he had removed from the thigh of Mary Lynch, who died in 1869 of trichinosis in Blockley Almshouse, Philadelphia	Photograph (right)
De conceptione adversaria by (1686)	Philadelphia College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Historical Medical Library, GGc 15.1	Bound by Dr John Stockton Hough with the tattooed wrist skin of a man who died at Philadelphia Hospital in 1869[41]	Slim book at top right
Speculations on the mode and appearances of impregnation in the human female by Robert Couper (1789)	Philadelphia College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Historical Medical Library, GGa 33	Bound in 1887 by Dr John Stockton Hough with skin he had removed from the thigh of Mary Lynch, who died in 1869 of trichinosis in Blockley Almshouse, Philadelphia	Binding and testimonial Image for non-commercial use Mutter Minute (video): Book Bound in Human Skin
An elementary treatise on human anatomy by Joseph Leidy (1861)	Philadelphia College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Historical Medical Library, Ad 14	Joseph Leidy's own copy, with his note: 'The leather with which this book is bound is human skin, from a soldier who died during the great Southern Rebellion.'	Photograph (red spine label)
Le traicté de peyne (1868)[42]	New York City The Grolier Club, Grolier Club Library, \56.3f\Kauf\1868	"Bound by Kauffmann-Petit (and signed by [Léon] Maillard)"; Samuel Putnam Avery's copy	"bound by Kauffmann-Petit (...) in human skin, tooled in black on spine and covers; gilt turn-ins; marbled endpapers".
Des destinées de l'ame by Arsène Houssaye (1880?)	Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University, Houghton Library, FC8.H8177.879dc	Presented by Arsène Houssaye to the bibliophile Dr Ludovic Bouland of Strasbourg, who bound it in skin which he had removed from 'the back of the unclaimed body of a woman patient in a French mental hospital who died suddenly of apoplexy'. Later given to Houghton Library by John B. Stetson Jr.	Front cover
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley (1773)[43]	Cincinnati, Ohio University of Cincinnati, Archives & Rare Books Library, PS866 .W5 1773	Given by Bertram Smith of Acres of Books to the Department of Rare Books University of Cincinnati[44] in the 1950s.[45]	Dark brown half leather over parchment.[43] One of three copies of Wheatley's work bound by Joseph William Zaehnsdorf (London) in 1934 for the American book dealer and collector Charles F. Heartman (1883-1953).[46] Preservation Lab Treatment Report and photographs
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley (1773)[43]	Cincinnati, Ohio Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, 811 W557p	From the Charles F. Heartman Collection of Material Relating to Negro Culture (bookplate).[47][48] Given by Bertram Smith of Acres of Books to the Cincinnati Public Library in 1958.[43]	Dark brown full leather.[43] One of three copies of Wheatley's work bound by Joseph William Zaehnsdorf (London) in 1934 for the American book dealer and collector Charles F. Heartman (1883–1953).[46] Preservation Lab Treatment Report and photographs
Le Scarabée d'or by Edgar Allan Poe (1892) (French edition of The Gold-Bug)	French private collection (2016)	Bound by Gustave Rykers of Bruxelles (stamped in gilt inside the front cover (in French): "Relié en Peau Humaine. G. Rykers."(Bound in human skin. G. Rykers)). Sold at auction in 2016[49] to a French private collector.[50] Human skin confirmed in PMF analysis conducted by Dan Kirby in 2018.[51]	"brown leather-backed marbled boards, raised bands, decoration of a gold bug descending front the eye-socket of a skull above a crossed sickle and shovel decoration on spine, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt."[49]
Narrative of the Life of James Allen (Boston, Harrington & Co., 1837)[52] · [53]	Boston, Massachusetts Boston Athenæum $65.Al57		"Bound by Peter Low in Allen's skin, treated to look like gray deer skin; bears the cover title "Hic liber Waltonis cute compactus est," stamped in gold upon a black leather rectangle." Digitised version
Essai sur les lieux et les dangers des sépultures by Félix Vicq d'Azyr (1778)[54]	Brussels Royal Library of Belgium WBS VI 21.433 A LP (RP)	Bound by Josse Schavye of Brussels (end of 19th century). Sold by Schavye to the Belgian government in 1896 .[55]	Binding decorated with skulls and crossbones.[56] Human skin binding confirmed in October 2018 by PMF analysis[57] · [58] Video (in French)

Supposed examples confirmed as animal skin[]

Confirmed by peptide mass fingerprinting not to be human skin show

Book	Location	Provenance	Binding
Opera by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1504)	Notre Dame, Indiana University of Notre Dame, Hesburgh Libraries, B 785 .P588 A1 1504	Supposedly bound in the skin of a 'Moorish chieftain' for Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros and presented to Christopher Columbus (see John Nagy, 'The truth uncovered', Notre Dame Magazine, Spring 2016)	Pigskin; see also [1]
Practicarum quaestionum circa leges regias Hispaniæ by Juan Gutiérrez (1605)	Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University, Harvard Law School Library, Foreign Treatises G	Supposedly bound in the skin of Jonas Wright, flayed alive in 1632	Sheepskin; Digitised version
Olympe, ou Metamorphose d'Ovide (1597)	Boston Harvard University, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, PA6519 .M2 1597	Supposedly bound in human skin according to pencil annotation inside cover	Sheepskin
L'idolatrie huguenote by Louis Richeome (1608)	Memphis University of Memphis, Ned R. McWherter Library, BR845 .R53x	Supposedly bound in human skin according to bookseller (see Perry Neil Harrison, 'On the Binding of the University of Memphis' L'idolatrie Huguenote', Notes and Queries 62(4) (2015) 589–591; subscription required)	Sheepskin
L'office de l'Eglise en françois (1671)	Berkeley University of California, Bancroft Library, t BX2024.A5 F7 1671	Supposedly bound in the skin of a victim of the guillotine during the French Revolution	A miniature devotional book 'bound in horse hide, resembling black pebble-grained morocco' (library catalogue record) or a mixture of horse and goat (David Faulds, curator)[59]
Relation des mouvemens de la ville de Messine (1676)	Los Angeles Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA, DG975.M532 R2 1676	Note believed to be in the handwriting of former owner James Westfall Thompson: 'The binding is human skin. The book is from the library of Armand Jerome Bignon (1711–72), librarian of Louis XV.'[60][61]	Sheepskin[62]
Libri IV de intellectu humanu by John Locke (1709)	Philadelphia College of Physicians of Philadelphia, BF 441 L814e 1709		'Cattle hide' according to Rosenbloom in Lapham's Quarterly
Bibliotheca politica (1691–1694) by James Tyrrell	Huntingdon, Pennsylvania Juniata College, Beeghly Library	Supposedly bound in human skin according to a note in the hand of donor Abraham H. Cassel	Sheepskin
El largo viaje by Tere Medina (1972)	Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania Slippery Rock University, Bailey Library FOL PQ7298.23 .E3 L3	Supposedly bound in skin tanned commercially by the 'Aguadilla tribe of the Mayaguez Plateau'	'Very convincing faux leather' (library catalogue record)
Bibliotheca by the Pseudo-Apollodorus (Heidelberg: Commelinus, 1599)	Athens, Georgia University of Georgia, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library Rare Bk PA3870 .A7 1599	Supposedly "bound in human skin, according to note on flyleaf".	Sheepskin

Unconfirmed but located examples[]

Located in institutions and private collections show

Book	Location	Provenance	Binding
De integritatis & corruptionis virginum notis by Séverin Pineau and other works (1663)	London Wellcome Library, 41286/A or EPB Bindings 14	Bound in 1865 by Marcellin Lortic of Paris for the bibliophile Dr Ludovic Bouland of Strasbourg with a woman's skin which he had tanned as a medical student; given to the Wellcome by Annabel Geddes, founder of the London Dungeon	Photograph 1 Photograph 2 Photograph 3 testimonial
Scrutinium scripturarum by Pablo de Santa Maria (Strasbourg: Johann Mentelin, 1470)	Washington, D.C. Incun. X .P17 Vollbehr Coll, Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA		Library of Congress, Loan exhibition of incunabula from the Vollbehr Collection (1928), item 103 (page 5) Identified by the FBI as ox or bull hide (Carolyn Marvin, 'The body of the text: literacy's corporeal constant', Quarterly Journal of Speech 80(2) (1994), pp. 129–149; (subscription required) doi:10.1080/00335639409384064)
A True and Perfect Relation of the Whole Proceedings Against ... Garnet a Jesuite (London: Robert Barker, 1606)	Private collection	Sold at auction, 2 December 2007	Photographs
Trinum magicum by Caesar Longinus (Frankfurt: Jakob Gottfried Seyler, 1673)	Brighton 156.14 L86, Jubilee Library, Brighton, UK		Photograph
Exercitatio anatomica de glandula pituitaria by Franz Sebastian Vorster and Johann Conrad von Brunner (Heidelberg: Johann David Bergmann, 1688)	Kansas City WZ 250 B8974ee 1688, Clendening History of Medicine Library, University of Kansas, Kansas City, USA		'Inscription verso front free endpaper: [ink] De luxe binding of / human skin from the / circus giant "Perky."' (Catalogue)
Ledger in French (18th century)	Leeds Private collection		BBC News, Skin book owners found by police, 10 May 2006
Dissertatio de arteriis et venis intestinorum hominis by Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (Leiden: Dirk Haak, 1736) together with 5 other anatomical illustrations	Stanford, California E21H .A325 1736, Lane Medical Library, Stanford University, Stanford, California, US		'Bound in black leather made from human skin; inscription: "Dieses Buch wurde von mir in Menschenhaut gebunden, Berlin, i. Juni, 1910, Paul Kersten."' (Catalogue) See Charles D. O'Malley, 'Bound in Full Human Skin', Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 8 (October 1953), pp. 447–448 (subscription required, doi:10.1093/jhmas/VIII.October.447)
Anatomy epitomized and illustrated by M.N. (London: John Noon, 1737)	San Marino, California 618830, Huntington Library
Essai sur l'électricité des corps by Jean-Antoine Nollet (Paris: Frères Guerin, 1746)	Mâcon 40857, Médiathèque municipale de Mâcon, Mâcon, France		(Thompson, Religatum, page 152)
French Constitution (two copies: 1789 and Dijon: Causse, 1793)	Paris Musée Carnavalet		Thompson, page 94; Libération
Tableau des prisons de Paris by Coissin (Paris: Michel, 1795?)	Nîmes 80986, Carré d'Art Bibliothèques		'Ex Libris : Marcellin Pellet; Reliure en peau humaine.' (Catalogue)
The Horwood Book (miscellaneous papers etc. re case of John Horwood executed for murder, 1821–1828)	Bristol 35893/36/v_i, Bristol Record Office	Photograph	'Bound in the skin of John Horwood' (Catalogue) On display at M Shed, Bristol
An Authentic and Faithful History of the Mysterious Murder of Maria Marten by James Curtis (London: Thomas Kelly, 1828)	Moyse's Hall Museum, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK		bound in the skin of William Corder, the murderer
Pocketbook (presumably blank) (1829)	Edinburgh Surgeons' Hall Museum, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK	Photograph	William Burke
The poetical works of Rogers, Campbell, J. Montgomery, Lamb, and Kirke White (Paris: A. & W. Galignani, 1829)	Canberra RB 821.708 ROG, National Library of Australia, Canberra, Australia	Photograph #9	'Pencilled note on front free end paper of EAP copy (in Dewey run) reads : Bound in human skin.' (Catalogue) See also 'In the Flesh?' for confirmation.
Little poems for little folks by M.S.C. (Philadelphia, Loomis & Peck, 1847)	Sold at auction in 1999		(Thompson, Religatum, page 148) exhibited at Harvard in 1933
The Chronicles of Nawat Wuzeer Hyderabad (manuscript, 1848)	Chicago Newberry Library, John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing, VAULT Case Wing folio Y 4902 .M27		FAQ
The poetical works of John Milton (London: William Tegg, 1852)	Exeter s095/DEV/MIL, Westcountry Studies Library	Photograph in BBC News report	'Bound in skin of George Cudmore, hanged for murder, 1830' (Catalogue)
Catalogue des sciences médicales of the Bibliothèque impériale, later Bibliothèque nationale (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1857–1873), two volumes bound in one	Philadelphia 610B P215, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA		Bound in 1887 by John Stockton Hough: see Carolyn Marvin, 'The body of the text: literacy's corporeal constant', Quarterly Journal of Speech 80(2) (1994), p. 137 (subscription required)doi:10.1080/00335639409384064 – or the newspaper clipping at Odd Book Bindings-Human Skin Used to Bind a Collection of Medical Books (Los Angeles Herald, May 29, 1904) Sold by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 1901: see Anthropodermic Book-bindings, p. 87
Koran (Bombay, 1867?)	Cleveland John G. White Collection, Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, Ohio, US
Les terres du ciel by Camille Flammarion (Paris: Didier, 1877)	Private collection, France	Photograph	Bound in 1882
La pluralité des mondes habités by Camille Flammarion (Paris: Didier, 1880)	L’observatoire Camille Flammarion, Juvisy-sur-Orge, France	Photograph	citation
Odes d'Horace translated by Henri Patin (Paris: Charpentier, 1883)	RES A 0360, Médiatheque Pierre Amalric, Albi, France	'Exemplaire relié avec de la peau humaine prise à l'amphithéâtre de médecine de la faculté de Toulouse en décembre 1883'
Lincoln, the Unknown by Dale Carnegie (New York: Century, 1932)	Philadelphia E457.C28 1932, Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University, Philadelphia, USA
Recueil de documents concernant Rambert et Mailly compiled by Jean Lacassagne (bound in 1935 with Rambert's tattoo)	Philippe Zoummeroff collection		Digitised version
Chirurgia by Nicetas (Paris: Pierre Gaultier, 1544)	Washington, D.C. RD30 .N53 1544 folio, Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, Smithsonian Institution	Digitised version	suspected not human skin
Notebook (Boston, between 1770 and 1800)	London EPB Special Bindings, Wellcome Library	Photograph	'The cover of this book is made of Tanned Skin of the Negro whose Execution caused the War of Independence' (tag) 'Originally thought to be an example of anthropodermic bibliopegy (human skin binding). This is now known to be false.' (Catalogue)
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli (1640?)	Bath Bath Central Library	blog post 'First English edn of Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (1554 [sic]) bound in human skin' cited in Karen Attar (ed.), Directory of Rare Book and Special Collections in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland (3rd edition, 2016), p. 9
Opuscules philosophiques et littéraires by J.B.A. Suard (1796)		Rigby Graham article, page 16	Bound by a binder from the Derome family
Aur. Corn. Celsi De medicina libri octo (1722)	Edmonton R 127 C39 1722, Bruce Peel Special Collections, University of Alberta	Photograph	'The most infamous book in the JW Scott Health Sciences Library's Rawlinson Rare Book Collection is the "Celsi de medicina libri octo". Published in 1722, this is the book that is purported to be bound in human skin.'
New Testament in Chinese [1866]	Philadelphia (Penn.), American Philosophical Society Library, 225.595 N425	Probably printed at the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Press at Foochow. Previously owned by Robert Cornelius V. Meyers of West Philadelphia.	Exhibited in 2005 with the comment : "Rebound in human skin before 1918."[63] Note in APS catalog (MARC view) : "This book is from China and bound in human skin." Image of the bookbinding

Ethical and legal issues[]

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• Repatriation and reburial of human remains
• Human trophy collecting
• Human Tissue Act 2004 (United Kingdom)
• Paul Needham, A Binding of Human Skin in the Houghton Library: A Recommendation (25 June 2014)

In popular culture[]

This article appears to contain trivial, minor, or unrelated references to popular culture. Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular culture, providing citations to reliable, secondary sources, rather than simply listing appearances. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2018)

The binding of books in human skin is also a common element within horror films and works of fiction.

Fiction

• In H.P. Lovecraft's horror story 'The Hound' (1922), the narrator and his friend St John, who are graverobbers, have a collection of macabre artefacts. Amongst them, "A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was rumoured Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge."^[64]
• In David H. Keller's short story "Binding Deluxe", first published in Marvel Tales (May 1934),^[65][66] a bookbinder uses the skins of the men she murders to create a "deluxe" binding for a set of Encyclopædia Britannica.
• In Brian Lumley's story 'Billy's Oak' (1970), a book, the Cthaat Aquadingen, is bound in human skin. Although over 400 years old, it still sweats.
• P. C. Hodgell's Kencyr series (1982 onwards) features "the Book Bound in Pale Leather", which appears to be bound in living human skin.
• Chuck Palahniuk's novel Lullaby (2002) features a book bound in human skin called "The Grimoire".
• In the novel The Journal of Dora Damage (2008) by Belinda Starling, a bookbinder is brought "leather" by a client with which to undertake a "special binding" of this nature.^[67]
• In Linda Fairstein's mystery novel Lethal Legacy (2009), a book collector shows investigators an 1828 book of trial proceedings that is bound with the skin of a convicted murderer.
• In the novel The Eye of God (2013) by James Rollins, Vigor receives a package from Father Josip Tarasco that contains a skull and an ancient book bound in human skin.
• In The Book of Life (2014) by Deborah Harkness (the final book in the A Discovery of Witches trilogy) the book is made entirely of human / creature materials including the binding, ink, and paper.
• In Trudi Canavan's novel Thief’s Magic, a protagonist discovers a magical book made by a powerful sorcerer with skin, hair, bones and tendons from a talented bookbinder^[68]
• In I Am Providence (2016) by Nick Mamatas, a book bound in human skin, whose owner is murdered, propels the plot.^[69]

Television and cinema

• In the Evil Dead series of films and comic books originally created by Sam Raimi in 1981, a fictional Sumerian book called the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis is bound in human skin and inked with human blood.
• In the Disney film Hocus Pocus (1993), the eldest Sanderson sister's (played by Bette Midler) fictional spellbook is bound in a patchwork of human skin with an enchanted, moving human eye embedded in the cover.
• Peter Greenaway's 1996 film The Pillow Book contains a sequence in which the body of a writer's lover is exhumed by an obsessed publisher; and his skin, which she wrote upon after his death, is painstakingly tanned and bound into a book.
• The eponymous book in the Canadian television series Todd and the Book of Pure Evil (2010) is allegedly bound in human skin.
• In the episode "Like a Virgin" (2011) of the TV series Supernatural, the book containing the spell to release the Mother of All is printed (rather than bound) on human skin.
• In one episode of Truth Seekers (2020), a prologue scene depicts a sequence where a publisher is killed over the possession of pages of "Praecepta Mortuorum", a book written on sun-dried human skin.

Video games

• In the video game Shadow Hearts (2001), one of the characters is able to use a book bound from human skin as a weapon.^[70]
• The video game Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (2002) centers around a book called the "Tome of Eternal Darkness" which is bound in human flesh.
• The video game "Assassin's Creed Unity" (2014) features the practice of binding books in human skins in a mission set in 18th century Franciade.
• In The Elder Scrolls, The Oghma Infinitum is a artifact of the deity known as "Herma-Mora", It is a book bound in human skin.

Notes[]

References[]

Further reading[]

• The Anthropodermic Book Project
• Jim Chevallier, 'Human Skin: Books (In and On)', Sundries: An Eighteenth Century Newsletter, #26 (April 15, 2006)
• Anita Dalton, Anthropodermic Bibliopegy: A Flay on Words, Odd Things Considered, 9 November 2015
• Gordon, Jacob (2016). "In the Flesh? Anthropodermic Bibliopegy Verification and Its Implications". RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage. 17 (2): 118–133. doi:10.5860/rbm.17.2.9664. ISSN 2150-668X.
• Graham, Rigby (1965). "Bookbinding with Human Skin" (PDF). The Private Library. series 1, 6 (1): 14–18. ISSN 0032-8898.
• Guelle, Laura Ann (December 2002). "Anthropodermic Book-Bindings". Transactions & Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. series 5, 24: 85–89. ISSN 0010-1087. PMID 12800321. (discusses John Stockton Hough's books)
• Kerner, Jennifer (2019). Anthropodermic Bibliopegy: an Extensive Survey and Re-appraisal of the Phenomenon (Research Report). Université Paris-Nanterre.
• Kerner, Jennifer (2019). "Reliures de livres avec la peau du condamné : hommage et humiliation autour des corps criminels". In Vivas, Mathieu (ed.). (Re)lecture archéologique de la justice en Europe médiévale et moderne : actes du colloque international tenu à Bordeaux les 8–10 février 2017 (in French). Bordeaux: Ausonius. pp. 195–211. ISBN 978-2-35613-243-7.
• Marvin, Carolyn (May 1994). "The Body of the Text: Literacy's Corporeal Constant". Quarterly Journal of Speech. 80 (2): 129–149. doi:10.1080/00335639409384064. – also available on academia.edu
• Rosenbloom, Megan (Summer 2016). "A Book by its Cover: Identifying & Scientifically Testing the World's Books Bound in Human Skin" (PDF). The Watermark: Newsletter of the Archivists and Librarians in the History of the Health Sciences. 39 (3): 20–22. ISSN 1553-7641..
• Rosenbloom, Megan (19 October 2016). "A Book by Its Cover". Lapham’s Quarterly. Retrieved 24 December 2018..
• Rosenbloom, Megan (2020). Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374134709..
• Samuelson, Todd (2014). "Still Life". Printing History: The Journal of the American Printing History Association. new series, 16: 42–50.
• Smith, Daniel K. (2014). "Bound In Human Skin: A Survey of Examples of Anthropodermic Bibliopegy". In Joanna Ebenstein; Colin Dickey (eds.). The Morbid Anatomy Anthology (First ed.). Brooklyn, New York: Morbid Anatomy Press. ISBN 9780989394307.
• Sorgeloos, Claude (2012). "L'Histoire de la reliure de Josse Schavye" [The History of Bookbinding by Josse Schavye]. In Monte Artium (in French). 5: 119–167. doi:10.1484/J.IMA.1.103005. ISSN 2507-0312.
• Thompson, Lawrence S. (April 1946). "Tanned Human Skin". Bulletin of the Medical Library Association. 34 (2): 93–102. PMC 194573. PMID 16016722.
• Thompson, Lawrence S. (1968). "Religatum de Pelle Humana" (PDF). Bibliologia Comica, or, Humorous aspects of the caparisoning and conservation of books. Hamden (Conn.): Archon Books. pp. 119–160. (originally issued separately in 1949 as University of Kentucky Libraries Occasional Contributions no. 6)

To use with caution[]

• Harrison, Perry Neil (2017). "Anthropodermic Bibliopegy in the Early Modern Period". In Larissa Tracy (ed.). Flaying in the Pre-Modern World : Practice and Representation. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: D.S. Brewer. pp. 366–383. ISBN 9781843844525. (Read with caution: This work is mostly obsolete. The two examples of allegedly anthropodermic bindings cited by Harrison (Richeome's L'Idolatrie Huguenote from University of Memphis and L'office de l'Eglise en françois from Berkeley) have since been proven by PMF analysis to be not of human origin. See the Table Supposed examples confirmed as animal skin.)

External links[]

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