League of the Lexicon - Halloween special

An appropriately gruesome subject for Halloween, as it involves the art of bookbinding using ‘human leather’, from Greek anthropos (man) + derma (skin). This macabre craft had its modest heyday in the 19th century, principally among medical men dissecting the bodies of executed criminals. Seeking the ultimate limited edition, resourceful surgeons would get the flayed skin tanned and sent to their bookbinder. Using criminals' skin had a gruesome poetic justice. Thus, the skin of graverobber and murderer William Burke was itself robbed to furnish a number of leather goods, including a notebook embossed with the date of his execution. And the trial records of murderer William Corder are preserved in a handsome edition bound with his own skin. You can see it at Moyse's Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds. The good news is that many books said to be bound in human skin are not. The Anthropodermic Book Project has tested a number of suspect books only to find that nearly half were non-human. But it remains a conundrum for librarians in grand libraries who continue to debate what to do with these works.

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