Would you read a book bound with human skin?

Books bound by human skin is a rather macabre but well-known practice through history known as anthropodermic bibliopegy.

Recently, The Anthropodermic Book Project looked at 31 books in public institutions thought to be bound with human skin and discovered 18 out of the 31 are definitely human, with the other 13 determined to be merely regular animal leather.

One of the earliest references to anthropodermic bibliopegy was by Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, when he wrote 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.”

A book bound with the skin of William Burke

The known examples of human skin bindings were usually created or collected by doctors as they had easy access to cadavers. Some of the most famous examples were made from the skin of executed criminals, such as John Horwood in 1821 and William Corder in 1828, and William Burke in 1829.

“The most famous of all anthropodermic bindings”, according to Lawrence Thompson, is held at the Boston Athenaeum, titled The Highwayman: Narrative of the Life of James Allen alias George Walton by James Allen. Allen asked for a copy of the book to be bound in skin from his back to be gifted to the man he had once tried to rob, in honour of his victim’s bravery, plus one for his doctor.

Gilt engraving reads: “Cutis Vera Johannis Horwood”- “the actual skin of John Horwood”

To identify that the binding is definitely human skin rather than animal skin, experts examine the pattern of hair follicles, however it is a difficult process as the treatment process is so harsh that it can distort the leather. DNA testing is also possible but can be tricky as, again, the tanning process can destroy DNA, human contact can contaminate the leather, and it can degrade over time.

More recently science has been able to use more complex systems such as peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) to help identify the material by examining proteins within the skin from even a tiny sample.

Five anthropodermic books were examined with PMF by The Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia who confirmed that three of the books were bound from the skin of one woman. The books are now held by the Mütter Museum.

Another four books confirmed by PMF to be bound with human skin are held at The John Hay Library at Brown University: Vesalius’s De Humani Corporis Fabrica, two nineteenth-century editions of Holbein’s Dance of Death, and Mademoiselle Giraud, My Wife.

Would you check out any of these anthropodermic books if you were given the chance?

Personally I don’t feel it would be that stranger than reading a book bound in animal skin. After all… Aren’t we animals too? It may be a tad creepy to think some of the people whose skin was used had no idea, but then neither did any of the animals who have been killed for their skin. I guess it depends where your own ethical or moral line is drawn.