{"id":4482,"date":"2014-06-10T10:01:20","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T09:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/?p=3574"},"modified":"2018-01-05T15:56:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T15:56:00","slug":"books-of-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/2014\/06\/books-of-blood\/","title":{"rendered":"Books of Blood"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"While the dusty realm of the library\u2019s seldom seen as a hive of excitement, a recent discovery at the library at Harvard University\u2019s Houghton Library has been causing something of a stir. For experts have recently confirmed that a volume in the library\u2019s collection is bound in human skin. Oddly enough, this isn\u2019t the first book belonging to the prestigious US university that was thought to have been bound in this grisly fashion. In 2006, Harvard librarians revealed that they believed they had at least three such volumes in their impressive collections. The practice is known as \u2018anthropodermic bibliopegy\u2019, proving that there\u2019s a name for pretty much everything.<\/p>\n

The first such volume in the Harvard collection\u2019s Practicarum Quaestionum Circa Leges Regias Hispaniae, a 17th Century Spanish legal text held by the University\u2019s Law Library. An inscription within claimed that \u2018the bynding of this booke is all that remains of my dear friende Jonas Wright, who was flayed alive by the Wavuma on the Fourth Day of August, 1632\u2019. However, scientific tests subsequently established that the leather bindings came from sheepskin rather than anything more sinister. Happily for fans of ghoulish tales, though, the second such volume to be tested recently by Harvard scientists, held by the Houghton Library, has proven to be the real deal.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The book in question is a slim French volume entitled Des destin\u00e9es de l\u2019ame, a 19th Century collection of essays meditating on the human spirit. \u2018This book is bound in human skin parchment on which no ornament has been stamped to preserve its elegance,\u2019 reads a note from the book\u2019s original owner who had it rebound in this gruesome style. \u2018By looking carefully you easily distinguish the pores of the skin. A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering: I had kept this piece of human skin taken from the back of a woman…\u2019<\/p>\n

Other documentation confirms that our original owner was a medical man, who obtained his materials from \u2018the back of the unclaimed body of a woman patient in a French mental hospital who died suddenly of apoplexy.\u2019 Scientist affirmed that tests on the binding \u2018clearly eliminated other common parchment sources, such as sheep, cattle and goat.\u2019 Though, while, \u2018consistent with human, other closely related primates, such as the great apes and gibbons, could not be eliminated because of the lack of necessary references.\u2019 The philosophical, old school book-lover can only conclude that at least this is something you won\u2019t find on your e-reader. Yet…<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.gavinbaddeley.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the dusty realm of the library\u2019s seldom seen as a hive of excitement, a recent discovery at the library at Harvard University\u2019s Houghton Library has been causing something of a stir. For experts have recently confirmed that a volume in the library\u2019s collection is bound in human skin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[466],"class_list":["post-4482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gavin-baddeley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8781,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4482\/revisions\/8781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}