Anthropodermic bibliopegy is the practice of binding books in human skin. Though extremely uncommon in modern times, the technique dates back to at least the 17th century. The practice is inextricably connected with the practice of tanning human skin, often done in certain circumstances after a corpse has been dissected.
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Surviving historical examples of this technique include anatomy texts bound with the skin of dissected cadavers, volumes created as a bequest and bound with the skin of the testator (known as 'autoanthropodermic bibliopegy'), and copies of judicial proceedings bound in the skin of the murderer convicted in those proceedings, such as in the case of John Horwood in 1821 and the Red Barn Murder in 1828.
The libraries of many Ivy League universities include one or more samples of anthropodermic bibliopegy. The rare book collection at the Harvard Law School Library holds a book, Practicarum quaestionum circa leges regias Hispaniae, a treatise on Spanish law. A faint inscription on the last page of the book states:
The bynding of this booke is all that remains of my deare friende Jonas Wright, who was flayed alive by the Wavuma on the Fourth Day of August, 1632. King Btesa did give me the book, it being one of poore Jonas chiefe possessions, together with ample of his skin to bynd it. Requiescat in pace.
(The Wavuma are believed to be an African tribe from the region currently known as Zimbabwe.)
The John Hay Library's special books collection at Brown University contains three human-skin books, including a rare copy of De Humani Corporis Fabrica by Vesalius.
Some early copies of Dale Carnegie's Lincoln the Unknown were covered with jackets containing a patch of skin from an African American man, onto which the title had been embossed.[1]
The National Library of Australia holds a book of 18th century poetry with the inscription "Bound in human skin" on the first page.[2]
There is also a tradition of certain volumes of erotica being bound in human skin. Examples reported include a copy of the Marquis de Sade's Justine et Juliette bound in tanned skin from female breasts. Other examples are known, with the feature of the intact human nipple on one or more of the boards of the book.
Saddam Hussein commissioned the creation of the Blood Qur'an, which, while not bound in human skin, is a complete copy of the Islamic holy book penned in Hussein's own blood; perhaps ignorantly opposing Islamic law, which regards blood as najas (unclean). [3]
It was commonly believed for a time that prominent Nazis, such as Ilse Koch, had commissioned the creation of items from the skin of victims of the Holocaust, including books and lampshades. However, reports of this particular supposed Nazi atrocity are widely considered today to be apocryphal, according to authorities such as the Nizkor Project. The serial killer Ed Gein did, however, make a lampshade from human skin.
In March, 2006 a human skin lampshade was sold for $35 to a collector in post-hurricane Katrina New Orleans. This object was verified at a DNA lab and the frame of the shade was verified as of Eastern European origin dating to 1920-1940. The full story of this object was documented in "The Lampshade" by Mark Jacobson, published by Simon and Schuster in September, 2010.
The Nazis are known to have taken and preserved individual pieces of skin, chiefly those sections displaying tattoos; several examples of such can be found within the collections of the National Museum of Health and Medicine and the United States National Archives,[4] although neither institution places these items on display.
The binding of books in human skin is also a common element within horror films and works of fiction: