31 March, 2014 Greg Newkirk

There’s something undeniably creepy about big, expansive libraries. The hushed whispers, the almost artificial quiet, and the smell of dusty tomes combine to create a surreal experience. But when it comes to creepy libraries, Harvard University might take the cake… you see, three of its books are bound in human skin.

A few years ago, three separate books were discovered in Harvard University’s library that had particularly strange-looking leather covers. Upon further inspection, it was discovered that the smooth binding was actually human flesh… in one case, skin harvested from a man who was flayed alive. Yep, definitely the creepiest library ever. Read more…

Received 4th April 2014:

Hi,
You recently shared a story on Harvard Library owning volumes allegedly bound in sheepskin. We would like to provide some followup info for you to share with your readers. New testing by an expert at Harvard has shown that a book widely reported to be bound in human skin is in fact bound in sheepskin. If you’d like to follow up on the original post, please see info on the testing at the Harvard Law Library’s blog here:
http://etseq.law.harvard.edu/2014/04/852-rare-old-books-new-technologies-and-the-human-skin-book-at-hls/
Thank you,
Kate

Kate Kondayen

Communications Officer

The Harvard Library

library.harvard.edu
@HarvardLibrary

T: 617-496-1519

Related articles

• The Flesh Bound Books… at Harvard (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
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• Harvard’s Books of Flesh (kevinhurtack.wordpress.com)
• Harvard Discovers Old Library Books Bound in Human Skin (mediabistro.com)
• The Harvard Library Owns Books Bound With Human Skin (kansamuse.me)