Harvard Library has announced the removal of human skin from the binding of a copy of Arsène Houssaye’s book “Des destinées de l’âme” (1880s), held at Houghton Library.

The volume’s first owner, French physician and bibliophile Dr. Ludovic Bouland (1839–1933), reportedly bound the book with skin taken without consent from the body of a deceased female patient in a hospital where he worked.

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The book has been part of the Harvard Library collections since 1934, first introduced through a deposit by John B. Stetson, Jr. (1884–1952), an American diplomat, businessman, and Harvard graduate (AB 1906). It was subsequently donated to Houghton Library by his widow, Ruby F. Stetson, in 1954.

In a statement on Harvard University Library’s website, it said: “After careful study, stakeholder engagement, and consideration, Harvard Library and the Harvard Museum Collections Returns Committee concluded that the human remains used in the book’s binding no longer belong in the Harvard Library collections, due to the ethically fraught nature of the book’s origins and subsequent history.”

It also stated that it was coordinating with French authorities to find a respectful method of burying the remains.

The book in question, “Des Destinées de l’Ame,” is described as a meditation on the soul and life after death, written by Arsène Houssaye in the mid-1880s. Houssaye is believed to have given it to his friend, Dr. Bouland, who reportedly bound the book with skin from the body of an unclaimed female patient who had died of natural causes.

Opposition to human skin book bindings

Princeton academic Paul Needham opposed its presence in Harvard’s library. In a 2020 op-ed for the New York Review, Needham stated it was a form of “post-mortem rape”.

He wrote: “My recommendation is rather that, in defense of human dignity, the remains of an innocent and injured human being should finally be treated with respect.”

The librarian added the patient had been “mutilated by Bouland, but her memory was equally polluted by the heartless mockery of the Houghton Library’s blog of June 2014, which was titled ‘Caveat Lecter’.”

What is the term for books bound in human skin?

Anthropodermic bibliopegy refers to books bound in human skin. The Anthropodermic Book Project states on their site: “The historical reasons behind their creation vary: 19th century doctors made them as personal keepsakes for their book collections or at the request of the state to further punish executed prisoners. Persistent rumors exist about French Revolutionary origins as well.”

As of 2019, according to the Anthropodermic Book Project, out of 50 suspected books identified, 18 have been confirmed as made from human skin, while 13 are likely made from animal skin. There are still 19 books that have yet to be tested.

Lead researcher of the project, medical librarian, and former co-founder of Death Salon, Megan Rosenbloom, explains that the term ‘anthropodermic bibliopegy’ can be broken down as follows: “anthro being human, dermic being skin, biblio as book, and pegy being fastened. Human skin book fastening.”

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The author of “Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin,” spoke to the Morbid Anatomy Online Journal in 2020, telling them that “pretty much any real human skin book’s story that I’ve been able to trace the provenance for almost always has a doctor involved in the creation of a book. 

“There’s usually a doctor who takes the skin of a patient, maybe from their autopsy table or the anatomy lab, and just saves the skin for later,” the former Southern California Society for the History of Medicine president added.

She also stated that in 2014, Harvard’s conservation lab tested three suspected books and found that one appeared to be made from human skin, which caused an uproar. This book is said to be the one in question.

Rosenbloom believes that the rationale behind the books stems from clinicians sometimes viewing patients merely as body parts and diseases to be cured, leading to a form of depersonalisation. “There’s this clinical distancing that takes place,” she stated. On top of this, as doctors climbed up the social ladder, book collecting became a gentlemanly pursuit.

The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia houses a unique collection of specimens and objects reflecting the human history of anatomy and medicine. This collection includes several of these bound books, one of which is reportedly partially covered in skin taken from the thigh of Mary Lynch, an Irish immigrant who died in the Almshouse at Philadelphia General Hospital in 1869. After her death from tuberculosis and encysted trichinosis, her skin was removed by John Stockton Hough, MD, the 23-year-old Resident Physician at the Almshouse.

What famous books were bound in human skin?

According to Rosenbloom’s book, “Narrative of the Life of James Allen,” authored by the individual of the same name, is an 1837 publication bound in human skin. Remarkably, it is allegedly the only known anthropodermic book created with consent from its source. Allen, a nineteenth-century highwayman in Massachusetts, requested that a copy of his printed memoirs be bound in his skin and gifted to John Fenno, a man who had resisted Allen’s robbery attempt.

The 16th-century book “Le traicté de Peyne: poëme allégorique dédié à Monseigneur et à Madame de Lorraine,” is suggested to be the only known example of anthropodermic erotica. The author is unknown.

“Recueil des secrets,” written in 1635 by Louise Boursier, is one of the three books supposedly bound in the skin of Mary Lynch. It came from the collection of John Stockton Hough, the physician who performed the autopsy and binding. Hough had about five books in his library.

“An Elementary Treatise on Human Anatomy” by anatomist Joseph Leidy, written in 1861, was bound in the skin of a soldier killed during the American Civil War, during which Leidy volunteered as a surgeon.

It’s hardly surprising to find Edgar Allan Poe on this list, given that his novelette “The Gold-Bug” is one of the few books bound in human skin and held in a private collection. Rosenbloom suggests that it may have once been owned by John Steinbeck, the author of “Of Mice and Men”.