Brown University claims to have three books bound in human skin, an anatomy book and two editions of a medieval morality tale entitled "The Dance of Death." One edition was originally published in 1816 and was rebound in 1893 by a master binder in London named Joseph Zaehnsdorf. The Zaehnsdorf edition was left plain, in order to exhibit the cover's texture, which "has a slightly bumpy texture, like soft sandpaper. The spine and back cover, made from the inner layer of skin, feels like suede." The other edition has a golden skull and inlaid with black leather. The reason books were bound in human skin was to connect the text's theme with the book itself.
Apparently, the practice was common in that century, since "human leather" is durable and waterproof. Access to the material was rather limited, but doctors could collect skin from deceased patients, as well as from those working in poor houses or executed prisoners. Laura Hartman, rare book cataloguer for the university's library, cites from a article written in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in the late 1800's in which it "suggests that [the practice] was common, but [the article] also indicates it wasn't talked about in polite society."
Read a more thorough article on BoingBoing, just scroll down the page.
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7 comments:
um, i was expecting more on getting your ears cleaned and now with buffy and then this, am totally creeped, but also completely intrigued.
now i can chase that question, "are you into leather?" with "human leather?"
fun
j. :)
"are you into leather?" "human leather?"
I believe we may have an early contender for motto/new saying 2006.
What got me interested in this was Mcluhan's ideas on mediums: although the text is interesting, the fact the text is "transmitted" through the book (which has its own cultural baggage, amplified by using *ahem* human leather) contains even more meaning.
Since you're the Sewing Queen I figured you could hook me up with a fine-looking cap; but that would be, you know, wrong.
Are you blogging these days? If no, then why not?
To the GSH: What about the Sobriety Buddha?
My inner McLuhan nerd is rolling in this idea like a mutt that just found a dead seagull.
And the Sobriety Buddha reigns over the new year, without question.
As an internerd tech note, if you want to link to the exact story, rather than the front page, click on the "permalink" link at the bottom of the entry. Or, for sites other than BoingBoing, if they don't have that, but do have a comments page, click on the comments link and remove the "/comments" part of the url--that should leave you with a clean url to link to.
Thanks, man! The original source is from a newpaper site, and their pages are only temporarily up. I'll start using the permalink option.
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