At all times, people have actively used the skin of animals to make clothes and various household items. Linguists even believe that the very word “skin” originally sounded like “goat”. After all, the skin of this particular animal succumbed to dressing, and then in the hands of a skilled craftsman turned into elegant shoes or a cloak. After some time, this word began to denote the skin of all living things, including humans. Few people now know that several hundred years ago, human skin was considered as excellent material as, for example, pork or calf. Surprisingly, a lot of various items were made from it, which were simply staggeringly demanded by the aristocrats and the wealthy bourgeoisie. The incredible demand in France, which introduced fashion for such products, was for books in covers made of human skin. It sounds so creepy and fantastic for modern people that we decided to talk in more detail about texts and works that were immortalized on well-made human skin.
History of deceased leather goods
It seems to us absolute savagery to make books from human skin or any other similar products, but our ancestors considered this to be quite normal. It is difficult to say when such unusual material was used for the first time, but historians are aware of numerous cases of the use of human bones by the tribes of South America, Australia and the Amazon.
The fact is that these peoples considered death a kind of transition to another world, and the best way to honor the memory of the deceased was to make various ritual objects from their bones and skin. Most often they went to the drums, bowls and knife handles. Thus, the deceased person continued to be part of the tribe and became a guide to the world of spirits.
Over time, humanity developed and moved away from the ancient barbarian traditions. In Europe, paganism was replaced by Christianity, which propagated a completely different attitude towards the deceased and their remains. It seemed that no one would have thought of using the cover of the human body as an ordinary material for the manufacture of, for example, shoes. However, the reality turned out to be much more shocking, because in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries objects made of the skin of dead people became fashionable. It is difficult to realize the fact that one of the last books in binding from human skin was created in the seventies of the last century. Think about it - just forty-odd years ago, the cover of some dead person went to make a book! But do not think that in our modern world you will not meet this. Recently, press reports leaked that there is still an underground factory in Europe that produces shoes, belts, wallets and books made of human skin. And these products, sold out at the manufacturing stage, are deposited in the collections of millionaires and billionaires. Whether this is so - no one knows, but concerned psychologists have already begun to study this phenomenon, making simply shocking conclusions.
Deadly attraction
Modern psychology is able to look deep into the human subconscious, where all his secret thoughts and desires are hidden. And in the interest, for example, of books bound in human skin, they see a frightening tendency to change public consciousness.
Psychologists say that at all times, interest in death accompanied humanity. But in each culture, a certain taboo was created, which was to clearly separate the world of the living from the world of the dead. However, there have always been people who have a special craving for the dead - necrophiles. This phenomenon was described back in the seventeenth century and at the moment it is well studied. Science has proved that public opinion and cultural traditions create a fairly strong subconscious ban that blocks most people from such an attraction.
But the increased interest in products made of human skin can testify only to one thing - modern society has lifted almost all internal prohibitions, having released the most secret desires. Indeed, the pleasure of owning a book in a cover made of human skin is akin to the necrophilic craving for a dead body.
Many experts argue that this trend only occurs when the structure of society is destroyed. For example, during the French Revolution, factories were operating in the country that produced many leather goods from executed people. These items were bragged to each other, because often they left information about the person whose cover was used.
Perhaps it still seems to you that everything we have said is a children's horror story invented by impressionable journalists or writers. If you are still in doubt whether books of human skin actually exist, then after reading the following sections of the article you will definitely be convinced of the reality of such objects.
The oldest book of anthropodermic material
When thinking of books made of human skin, we usually present anything, but not the Bible. You must admit that it’s hard to believe that someone could write a text sacred to all Christians on material that was once part of a person. However, such a book does exist, and not only its binding is made of human skin, but also all pages.
This Bible is considered one of the oldest, after careful analysis, scientists have established an approximate date of its creation - the third century AD. Unfortunately, the story did not save any information about the author of this publication and the man whose skin served as material for the book.
It is interesting that the letters of African and Australian natives found by archaeologists are dated with the same figure. They are also printed on anthropodermal material and together with the Bible top our list of books made of human skin.
Seventeenth Century: The Development of Medicine
Today, scientists are well aware of books made of human skin made in the seventeenth century. These rare specimens are periodically found in museum displays or in private collections. Interestingly, the fascination with such books was directly related to the development of medicine.
By the seventeenth century, this science was making one breakthrough after another, and among the townspeople there was an increase in the number of people who voluntarily bequeathed their bodies after death to conduct scientific experiments. These bodies were used for a more detailed study of human anatomy, but the skin, useless for physicians, suddenly began to be used as covers or binding for medical treatises.
Initially, only books on medical subjects were published in this form, but then legal collections and even Catholic church law appeared.
Researcher Leather Book
Not so long ago, a very interesting and unusual copy of a book made of human skin was discovered. Outwardly, this is an unremarkable collection of articles on Spanish law, but the librarians were attracted by the slightly unusual color of the binding and the inscription on the cover, claiming that this publication was made of anthropodermic material. After several analyzes, this version was confirmed, and unusual circumstances that led to the appearance of this book were also clarified.
The fact is that in the thirties of the seventeenth century, a certain Jonas Wright went on a dangerous journey through Africa. He planned to study several local tribes, but was captured by cannibals and eaten. After some time, the leader of the tribe decided to return his personal belongings to the researcher's friend, and they also had skin attached to them, which for some reason the natives refused to eat. Among the things turned out to be an old and shabby little book on Spanish law, which a friend of Jonas Wright decided to weave with the skin remaining from the researcher.
The French Revolution: Introducing Human Skin Products
The eighteenth century was marked by a series of bloody events in Europe. Several hundred people were executed in Paris daily, whose bodies did not have time to bury. This fact was the reason for the discovery in the nineties of the eighteenth century in the capital of France, a small factory for the production of human skin. Various products were made from it, which the aristocrats snapped up in no time. It was considered very prestigious and fashionable to brag among friends such a rare and very expensive little thing.
This monstrous, by the standards of modern man, trend continued in the nineteenth century. Only now, skin donors were murderers executed for numerous crimes, and those who independently decided to donate a piece of themselves after death to certain people. The story of a young man from Russia is widely known who, after an injury, underwent amputation of his arm. He asked the doctors to remove the skin from his limb, and after dressing it became the material for the binding and cover of a collection of poems of his own composition. He presented this unusual book to a girl whom he had been in love with for several years without reciprocity.
Book of Pied Piper Leather
In the thirties of the nineteenth century, rat-rats from England named George Cadmore were executed for the murder of his own wife. Poor little thing he poisoned with arsenic and dug in the garden. The skin of Kadmore was bought by one of the wealthy book dealers and made from it a binding for a poetry collection.
Interestingly, the book itself indicates exactly who became the donor of anthropodermal material, as well as what crimes led him to death in prison dungeons.
Gift to the astronomer
In the nineteenth century, France lived and worked as the most popular astronomer of his time. Camille Flammarion - that was his name - published many of his scientific works, which were read not only by men, but also by enlightened ladies.
His books were a comfort to the countess dying of tuberculosis. She was often distracted from her illness by reading the works of Flammarion, and therefore bequeathed to the author her skin after death.
It is interesting that the astronomer never even met a girl, but gratefully accepted her gift. His next book was made in the cover of the skin of a French countess. On the reverse side was an inscription stating that this instance was made of the skin of a woman.
Robber's Memoirs
Around the middle of the nineteenth century, a rather strange story occurred, which resulted in another book made of human skin. American gangster James Allen lived off the people he robbed. But once the next victim managed to show him serious resistance and, despite a gunshot wound, brought the robber to the police station.
Once in prison, James began to write memoirs and bequeathed after death to use his skin to bind. Even more unexpected for everyone was the fact that this unusual instance, according to the will of the criminal, was supposed to get to the person who detained Allen.
Erotic poetry
One of the most famous copies of books made of human skin was written in the seventies of the last century. It is dedicated to Spanish erotic poetry and is currently stored in the Bailey library.
On the book itself, it is indicated that the cover material was the skin of a representative of one of the indigenous tribes, who decided to keep it after the death of relatives. As a result, in every family, a sufficient amount of skin accumulates, periodically falling on black markets. And from there she goes to various workshops scattered across the planet.
