Anthropodermic bibliopegy
Anthropodermic bibliopegy is the practice of binding books in human skin. As of April 2022[update], The Anthropodermic Book Project has examined 31 out of 50 books[1] 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.[1][2]
Etymology
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").[4] The earliest reference in the Oxford English Dictionary dates from 1876; Merriam-Webster gives the date of first use as c. 1859[5] and the OED records an instance of 'bibliopegist' for a bookbinder from 1824.
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 seems 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.[6] The practice of binding a book in the skin of its author – as with The Highwayman – has been called 'autoanthropodermic bibliopegy'[7] (from αὐτός, autos, meaning "self").
History
An early reference to a book bound in human skin is found in the travels of
During the
The majority of well-attested anthropodermic bindings date from the 19th century.
Examples
Criminals
Surviving examples of human skin bindings have often been commissioned, performed, or collected by medical doctors, who have access to
What Lawrence Thompson called "the most famous of all anthropodermic bindings" is exhibited at the
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;[18] 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[19] 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."[20]
Other examples
Another tradition, with less supporting evidence, is that books of erotica[21][22][23] 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").[24] 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.[25]
The National Library of Australia holds a 19th-century poetry book with the inscription "Bound in human skin" on the first page.[26] The binding was performed 'before 1890' and identified as human skin by pathologists in 1992.[27]
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".[28]
Identification
The identification of human skin bindings has been attempted by examining the pattern of
Instead,
The Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia owns five anthropodermic books, confirmed by peptide mass fingerprinting in 2015,[30] of which three were bound from the skin of one woman.[31] This makes it the largest collection of such books in one institution. The books can be seen in the associated Mütter Museum.
The
Three books in the libraries of
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.
Ethical and legal issues
Due to containing human remains, books bound in human skin are inherently problematic in relation to issues such as
See also
Notes
- ^ The Oxford English Dictionary places it in Frequency Band 2, for 'words which occur fewer than 0.01 times per million words in typical modern English usage. These are almost exclusively terms which are not part of normal discourse and would be unknown to most people. Many are technical terms from specialized discourses.'[4]
References
- ^ a b "The Anthropodermic Book Project". The Anthropodermic Book Project. Archived from the original on 2016-03-07. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
- ^ Megan Rosenbloom clarifies in this interview with Joanna Ebenstein in The Morbid Anatomy Online Journal, 16 April 2020 Archived 20 April 2020 at the Wayback Machine, that these figures do not include books tested from individuals' private collections, as opposed to libraries and museums.
- ^ "Google Ngram Viewer". books.google.com. Archived from the original on 2020-10-30. Retrieved 2019-09-08.
- ^ a b OED entry for bibliopegy Archived 2022-04-14 at the Wayback Machine, checked 9 September 2016.
- ^ Merriam-Webster definition for bibliopegy Archived 2016-09-14 at the Wayback Machine, checked 9 September 2016.
- ^ Thompson 1946.
- ^ Thompson 1968, pp. 140–142.
- ^ Thompson 1968, p. 135.
- ^ a b Rosenbloom, Lapham's Quarterly.
- ^ "Chirurgia è Graeco in Latinum conuersa". Smithsonian Libraries – Catalog. Archived from the original on 5 December 2018. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
- ^ Andreas, Vesalius (1568). De humani corporis fabrica. Brown University Library: Apud Franciscum Franciscium Senensem, & Ioannem Criegher Germanum. Archived from the original on 16 November 2018.
- ^ Sorgeloos 2012, p. 135–137.
- ^ "This may seem like a morbid question, but I'm curious. Does the Smithsonian have any books bound in human skin in its collection?". Turning the Book Wheel : Tumblr's blog of the Smithsonian Libraries. 30 April 2014. Archived from the original on 26 May 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
- ^ "Killer cremated after 180 years". BBC News. 17 August 2004. Archived from the original on 10 August 2017. Retrieved 4 July 2007.
- ^ "Pocketbook made from Burke's skin – Surgeons' Hall Museums, Edinburgh". museum.rcsed.ac.uk. Archived from the original on October 10, 2016.
- from the original on 3 August 2018. Retrieved 25 August 2017 – via catalog.bostonathenaeum.org Library Catalog.
- ^ "Boston Athenaeum Skin Book". Atlas Obscura. Archived from the original on 2020-05-18. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
- ^ The Grolier Club of the City of New York. Exhibition of silver, embroidered and curious bookbindings, April 16 to May 9, 1903 Archived October 13, 2020, at the Wayback Machine ([New York City]: The De Vinne Press, [1903]), exhibits 177–179 (pp. 58–59).
- ^ Callum James, Leonard Smithers: Human Skin Binding, Front Free Endpaper (May 27, 2009)
- ^ Hertzberg, Edward (1933). Forty-four years as a bookbinder. Chicago: Ernst Hertzberg and Sons Monastery Hill Bindery. p. 43.
- ^ Thompson 1946, p. 98.
- ^ Graham 1965, pp. 16–17.
- ^ Joanna Ebenstein, Interview with Megan Rosenbloom Archived 2020-04-20 at the Wayback Machine, The Morbid Anatomy Online Journal (April 16, 2020): 'everyone knows about de Sade: Justine, and Juliette, but I can't find any actual Justine and Juliette anywhere in an actual public library, so if it exists at all it's probably in a private collection'
- .
- ^ "Time Traveler's Wife – Newberry". www.newberry.org. Archived from the original on 25 August 2017. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
- ^ "Poems bound up in a human skin". Canberra Times. 8 August 2011. Archived from the original on 10 March 2016.
- ^ Gordon 2016, p. 122.
- ISBN 0877227497
- ^ "The Science". The Anthropodermic Book Project. 2015-10-19. Archived from the original on 2016-12-22. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
- ^ Lander, Beth (2015-10-01). "Welcome to this inaugural edition of Fugitive Leaves…". Archived from the original on 2018-07-17. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
- ^ Lander, Beth (2015-10-01). "The Skin She Lived In: Anthropodermic Books in the Historical Medical Library". Archived from the original on 2018-07-17. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
- ^ "Is it true the John Hay Library has books bound in human skin? - Answers". Brown University Library. Archived from the original on 2019-11-11. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
- ^ "Des destinées de l'ame". Archived from the original on 2022-04-14. Retrieved 2016-08-27.
- ^ "Caveat Lecter". Houghton Library Blog. 2014-06-04. Archived from the original on 2014-06-05.
- ^ "Olympe, ov Metamorphose d'Ovide". Archived from the original on 2022-04-14. Retrieved 2016-08-27.
- ^ "Practicarum quaestionum circa leges regias Hispaniæ primæ partis nouæ collectionis regiæ. Liber I et II". hollis.harvard.edu. Archived from the original on 2022-04-14. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
- ^ Karen Beck (April 3, 2014). "852 RARE: Old Books, New Technologies, and "The Human Skin Book" at HLS". The Harvard Law School Library Blog. Archived from the original on May 26, 2016. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
- ^ "Harvard University removes human skin binding from book". BBC. 28 March 2024. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
- ^ Pineau, Séverin; Bonacciuoli, Luigi; Platter, Felix; Gassendi, Pierre; Sebisch, Melchior (October 30, 1663). I. Sever. Pinaei De integritatis & corruptionis virginum notis: graviditate item & partu naturali mulierum, opuscula. II. Ludov. Bonacioli Enneas muliebris. III. Fel. Plateri De origine partium, earumque in utero conformatione. IV. Petri Gassendi De septo cordis pervio, observatio. V. Melchioris Sebizii De notis virginitatis. J. Ravestein. Archived from the original on April 14, 2022. Retrieved October 30, 2021 – via search.wellcomelibrary.org.
- ^ A Binding of Human Skin in the Houghton Library: A Recommendation (25 June 2014)
- ISBN 978-0-374-13470-9.
- ^ "Harvard University removes human skin binding from book". 2024-03-28. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
- ^ "A statement on Des destinées de l'âme and its stewardship | Harvard Library". library.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
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. ISSN 2150-668X.
- Graham, Rigby (1965). "Bookbinding with Human Skin" (PDF). The Private Library. series 1, 6 (1): 14–18. ISSN 0032-8898. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2019-02-25. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
- Guelle, Laura Ann (December 2002). "Anthropodermic Book-Bindings". Transactions & Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. series 5, 24: 85–89. 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.
- 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; 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. ISSN 2507-0312.
- 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.)