The
Boston Athenaeum , a private library, has an 1837 copy of George Walton's memoirs bound in his own skin. Walton was a highwayman -- a robber who specialized in ambushing travelers -- and he left the volume to one of his victims, John Fenno. Fenno's daughter gave it to the library.
You can see a copy of this volume by going to Boston Anthenaeum website here. In addition to a long, in-depth article on the book and it's history, they provide the complete text of the book itself. I didn't realize so many libraries had books of this type. Apparently, they are accepted into the library collection if they are books that further legitimate scholarly research. It gives me the creeps, but I think it would be a fascinating experience to see the Walton book in person. Here's another interesting article via the Harvard Law School on these creepy "anthropedermic" bindings. Including a speculative history of the practice of using human skin to bind books. Apparently, it gained popular credence during the French Revolution where copies of "The Rights of Man" where bound in flesh. Probably one of history's more ironic moments. The article also covers the "lampshade myth" from the Jewish Holocaust of the Second World War. There is a short, but interesting bibliography at the end of the article.
3 comments → Books Bound in Human Flesh
Okay, after I got past the "ewwwww" stage, I started thinking. This reminded me a little of an anatomy professor once explaining that many of the real skeletons used for science were donated by people in India who could not afford a burial. They often had "made in India" tags on them, like they were fashioned there out of plastic and not real people.
I went to the Bodyworlds exhibit at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and I noticed that the subjects that were preserved in a material much like amber and sliced horizontally looked like meat, really, like steak. There was also a guy who was sliced vertically in thin strips and he did look like leather. I know, this is really strange, but the show is fascinating and disturbing and,well, it made me kind of sad. I couldn't help but consider that I was surrounded by all those lost lives.
If I ever write my autobiography, I want the book cover to be in, I don't know, recycled soda bottles or something, certainly not any part of my anatomy.
I agree. There is a certain sadness surrounding these stories. I couldn't go to the Bodyworlds exhibit when it was here in Los Angeles. It would have given me bad dreams for days. I've seen pictures and they are too disturbing to me. Now Lisa, on the other hand, would just love it. Sigh....
I took a Human Anatomy and Physiology class in college. One day a discussion came up about where the skeletons in the lab had come from.
The instructor casually mentioned that some of the skeletons were real, pointed at the femur I was holding, and said, "Like that one".
I dropped the bone and it shattered on the floor.
Ooops.
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