For some, this news is of the stomach-churning kind. However, this is not the work of a cannibal, psychopath, or Hannibal Lecter himself. This is actually quite the practice in the 17th century. In fact, a French bible dating back to the 13th century was even covered in human epidermis.
Although the book "Des destinees de l'ame" had been in the possession of Harvard's Houghton Library since 1934, it's only recently that experts have confirmed the tome's binding is actually human skin, CNN reported.
"Scientists and conservators carried out a series of tests on Houghton Library's copy of the French writer Arsene Houssaye's 'Des destinees de l'ame' and concluded with 99.9% confidence that the binding material came from a human," the news source said.
"According to the library, Houssaye presented the text, described as 'a meditation on the soul and life after death,' to one of his friends, a book-loving medical doctor, in the mid-1880s," CNN continued. "The recipient, Dr. Ludovic Bouland, bound the book 'with skin from the unclaimed body of a female mental patient who had died of a stroke.'"
Dr. Bouland then wrote a note in the volume, saying that "a book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering."
Apparently, this volume is not the only one in his collection that is covered in human skin. His copy of Séverin Pineau's "De integritatis & corruptionis virginum notis" was also bound in such a material and is now in the possession of London's Wellcome Library and is tanned with a natural dye called sumac.
This kind of binding approach is called anthropodermic bibliopegy, which is descrived by Harvard as "the binding of books in human skin." "The confessions of criminals were occasionally bound in the skin of the convicted, or an individual might request to be memorialized for family or lovers in the form of a book," the university's online publication noted.
Although rumor has it that there are at least three books in Harvard's collection that were covered in human hide, the library maintained that the Houghton book is the only one officially recognized as having been bound in human skin. The others were found to be actually covered in sheepskin.
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