Harvard Removes the Human Skin Binding from a Book in Its Collection Since 1934

Harvard Library has removed human skin from the binding of a copy of Arsène Houssaye's book Des destinées de l'âme (1880s), declares a strenuously apologetic statement issued by the university.

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

Bouland knew that Houssaye had written the book while grieving his wife's death, and felt that this was an appropriate binding for it.

Read at Open Culture