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Dark Archives

Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin is a 2020 nonfiction book authored by Megan Rosenbloom, a collection strategies librarian at the University of California, Los Angeles, that investigates anthropodermic bibliopegy—the practice of binding books in human skin—through a combination of historical research, scientific testing, and ethical inquiry.^[1]^[2]^[3] Rosenbloom chronicles her collaboration with scientists, curators, and fellow librarians to authenticate suspected anthropodermic volumes using advanced techniques such as peptide mass fingerprinting, which analyzes protein markers to distinguish human tissue from animal hides, confirming that only about half of previously claimed examples are genuine.^[4]^[5] The narrative traces the origins of this macabre craft primarily to 19th-century European medical schools, where unclaimed cadavers from dissections—often of marginalized individuals—provided the material, challenging romanticized myths of bindings from executed criminals or voluntary donations.^[5]^[6] The book highlights notable verified specimens, including those held by institutions like Harvard University and the Philadelphia College of Physicians, while addressing ongoing debates about their custody, display, and potential repatriation to descendants or communities of origin, emphasizing the need to honor the humanity of the deceased amid collections historically acquired without consent.^[4]^[7] Rosenbloom's work, praised for its rigorous scholarship and accessible prose, also explores broader cultural attitudes toward death and the body, drawing from her background in death positivity advocacy to advocate for respectful stewardship of these artifacts without sensationalism.^[8]

Book Overview

Synopsis

Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin is a 2020 non-fiction book by Megan Rosenbloom, a medical librarian at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.^[1] The work examines anthropodermic bibliopegy, the practice of binding books in human skin, tracing its historical origins primarily in 19th-century Europe and the United States.^[4] Rosenbloom recounts her initial fascination sparked by encountering such volumes at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, leading to a broader inquiry into their authenticity, creation, and ethical implications.^[9] The book details Rosenbloom's involvement in the Anthropodermic Book Project, a collaborative effort begun in 2014 to scientifically verify purported human-skin bindings using peptide mass fingerprinting and other forensic techniques, confirming that of around 50 claimed examples worldwide, at least 18 contain human skin as of 2019.^[5] She explores diverse cases, including voluntary donors who contributed skin to preserve libraries, a prison warden who bound a convicted murderer's skin into a ledger in 1837, and instances of skin harvested postmortem from medical cadavers or, rarely, living individuals sold piecemeal.^[1] These narratives highlight the macabre intersections of medicine, criminal justice, and bookbinding, often tied to anatomical collections and legal records.^[10] Rosenbloom interweaves personal travelogues—visiting libraries, museums, and private collections across Europe and America—with historical analysis, questioning the motives behind such bindings and their custodianship today.^[11] The text addresses ethical dilemmas, such as whether these artifacts should be displayed, preserved, or repatriated, and reflects on broader human attitudes toward the dead, cautioning against commodification while advocating respectful handling based on provenance and consent where discernible.^[2] Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on October 20, 2020, the 288-page volume combines detective-like inquiry with scholarly rigor, emphasizing empirical verification over sensationalism.^[10]

Author and Background

![A woman sitting at a desk, with pale skin and dark wavy hair; she is wearing a seashell necklace and holding a pair of glasses](./assets/Megan_Rosenbloom_cropped Megan Rosenbloom is a medical librarian and rare books specialist currently serving as Collection Strategies Librarian at UCLA Library in Los Angeles.^[12] She previously worked at the University of Southern California's Norris Medical Library, where she began her career in medical librarianship.^[13] Over many years in the field, Rosenbloom developed a specialized interest in the history of medicine and rare books, which informed her research into anthropodermic bibliopegy—the practice of binding books in human skin.^[12] Rosenbloom's professional background as a medical librarian positioned her to explore the scientific and historical dimensions of anthropodermic books, blending archival expertise with investigations into forensic verification methods.^[4] She co-founded and directs Death Salon, an organization dedicated to scholarly discussions on death, mourning, and the macabre, which complemented her pursuits in morbid medical history.^[14] This interest culminated in her authorship of Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin, published on October 20, 2020, marking her first book.^[2] In the book, Rosenbloom draws on her librarianship experience to catalog and analyze verified examples of human-skin-bound volumes, emphasizing empirical testing over anecdotal claims.^[6] Her work has been recognized in library circles, including a 2016 Movers & Shakers award from Library Journal for her innovative educational approaches to medical history.^[13]

Historical Context

Origins of Anthropodermic Bibliopegy

The practice of anthropodermic bibliopegy originated in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, coinciding with the expansion of anatomical studies and dissections in medical education, where human cadavers—often from executed criminals or unclaimed bodies—provided readily available skin as a binding material.^[15]^[16] Physicians and bookbinders utilized tanned human skin for its symbolic resonance with themes of mortality in texts on anatomy, philosophy, or criminal justice, though the technique drew from established leatherworking methods adapted to human dermis, which requires similar liming, tanning, and stretching processes.^[17] Early instances were rare and undocumented beyond anecdotal claims, reflecting limited preservation of perishable bindings and the taboo nature of the material, but they served practical purposes in personal or institutional collections rather than widespread commercial production.^[18] The earliest reliable literary reference to an anthropodermic book appears in the 1710 travel accounts of German scholar Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, who described examining a small volume in Bremen, Germany, bound in the skin of a woman executed for infanticide; the binding was reportedly sourced post-dissection to commemorate the case.^[19] This account underscores a causal link to judicial punishment, where skin from condemned individuals was sometimes repurposed as a deterrent or trophy, a practice echoed in later examples like the 1821 binding from the skin of murderer John Horwood in Bristol, England, tanned by surgeon Richard Smith after execution and anatomical study.^[20] Such origins highlight how access to cadavers via public executions and early forensic medicine enabled the custom, distinct from mere curiosity, as anatomists sought durable, thematic covers for works on the human body or soul.00115-7/fulltext) While pre-17th-century claims exist—such as unverified assertions of 13th-century European bindings—they lack empirical corroboration through modern peptide mass fingerprinting or historical provenance, rendering the late 16th to early 18th centuries the verifiable genesis.^[21] The custom remained esoteric, confined to elite medical circles, until the 19th-century surge driven by Romantic-era fascination with death and improved tanning techniques, but its foundational motivations stemmed from utilitarian reuse of dissection byproducts amid Europe's evolving views on the body as both scientific specimen and moral emblem.^[22]^[20]

Prevalence and Notable Examples

The practice of anthropodermic bibliopegy, while sensationalized in popular culture, was exceedingly rare, with documented cases concentrated in the 19th century among medical professionals who utilized human skin from cadavers, unclaimed bodies, or patients for personal or institutional bindings.^[23] The Anthropodermic Book Project, a collaborative effort involving librarians and scientists, has identified approximately 50 suspected examples in public collections worldwide, primarily in Europe and North America; as of October 2025, testing via peptide mass fingerprinting on 32 of these has confirmed human origin in 18 instances, while the remainder were found to be animal leather or unverified.^[24] These bindings often involved skin sourced from hospitals or morgues, reflecting a macabre intersection of 19th-century medical curiosity and resource scarcity rather than widespread custom.^[4] Notable confirmed examples include Des Destinées de l'âme (1864) by Arsène Houssaye, held by Harvard University's Houghton Library until 2024. French physician Ludovic Bouland rebound the volume using skin excised from the unclaimed body of a deceased female patient at a mental hospital in 1880s France, as detailed in his inscription: "the noble lady having lost her mind during the last months of her life, thought she would redeem herself from death by giving me her skin... a book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering."^[20] Scientific analysis in 2014 verified the binding's human composition, though Harvard removed and archived the skin in April 2024 citing ethical concerns over its non-consensual origin.^[23] Another prominent case is a set of mid-19th-century medical texts on gynecology bound by Philadelphia physician William W. Hough using skin from Mary Lynch, an Irish immigrant and patient who died of complications following a hysterectomy in 1869. Hough retained portions of her skin for decades before commissioning the bindings around 1880, reportedly as a trophy of surgical prowess; peptide mass fingerprinting confirmed human tissue in 2017.^[25] Similarly, British surgeon Joseph H. Green had his own amputated hand's skin tanned and used to bind an 1820s edition of A Short System of Comparative Anatomy (first edition 1817), verified in the 2010s, exemplifying self-anthropodermic practices among physicians.^[19] These instances, often tied to themes of mortality or anatomy, underscore the practice's niche occurrence within medical subcultures rather than broader society.^[20]

Research and Scientific Methods

Verification Techniques

Verification of anthropodermic bibliopegy, the practice of binding books in human skin, has historically relied on anecdotal provenance, donor inscriptions, and subjective sensory tests such as visual inspection for a smoother texture or resistance to tanning compared to animal leathers, but these methods proved unreliable and prone to error due to similarities between human and other mammalian skins. Early chemical analyses, including histological examinations or basic protein tests, often failed to distinguish species definitively, leading to frequent misidentifications; for instance, a 19th-century claim about a book bound in an African American author's skin was later disproven as non-human.^[26] The advent of peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF) in the mid-2010s revolutionized verification by providing a minimally invasive, species-specific analysis of collagen proteins, the primary structural component of skin.^[27] PMF entails extracting a microgram-sized sample from the binding, enzymatically digesting the collagen into peptides, and using mass spectrometry—often matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI)—to generate a mass-to-charge spectrum unique to human collagen sequences, which differs from those of common binding materials like sheep, goat, or calfskin.^[28] This technique, first applied to confirm anthropodermic books in 2014 on a Harvard University volume (Des Destinées de l'âme), yielded the earliest scientifically validated cases by matching spectral fingerprints against known human databases while ruling out non-human alternatives.^[29] Developed collaboratively by the Anthropodermic Book Project, PMF's advantages include its low cost (under $100 per test), requirement for negligible sample sizes that preserve book integrity, and high specificity for mammalian origins without individual identification or ethical sourcing details.^[17] By 2016, the project had tested approximately 30 suspected volumes, confirming 18 as human-derived through PMF, though subsequent surveys expanded to over 50 candidates with refined protocols incorporating multiple sample sites (e.g., covers, spines, and glue residues) to account for mixed bindings.^[21] Limitations persist: PMF cannot trace skin provenance or consent history, and false positives are mitigated by cross-referencing with control leathers, but it remains the gold standard over older, less precise methods like DNA analysis, which degrades in tanned materials.^[30] Complementary approaches, such as radiographic imaging for structural anomalies or proteomic sequencing for deeper peptide mapping, are occasionally employed but subordinate to PMF's efficiency in routine verification.^[31]

The Anthropodermic Book Project

The Anthropodermic Book Project is a research initiative dedicated to scientifically verifying books claimed to be bound in human skin, known as anthropodermic bibliopegy. Founded around 2015, the project seeks to compile a comprehensive census of such volumes worldwide and apply rigorous forensic analysis to distinguish genuine examples from misattributions or fabrications. Approximately 50 books have been identified as reputedly anthropodermic, scattered across libraries, museums, and private collections.^[22]^[32] Led by Megan Rosenbloom, a medical librarian at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, the project collaborates with experts in mass spectrometry, art history, and conservation. Traditional verification methods, such as histological staining or visual examination of hair follicles, proved unreliable due to tanning processes that alter skin structure and subjective interpretations. Instead, the project employs peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF), which involves enzymatic digestion of collagen proteins from binding samples, followed by analysis via matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). This technique identifies species-specific peptide markers, reliably differentiating human skin from common bookbinding leathers like those from sheep, goats, cattle, or pigs. PMF's advantages include its non-destructive sampling potential (using minute amounts visible under 30x magnification) and superior preservation of collagen compared to DNA in aged, processed materials, reducing contamination risks.^[27] Through PMF and complementary methods, the project has tested dozens of volumes. By 2020, 18 out of 31 examined books were confirmed as bound in human skin, while others were debunked as animal leather. As of April 2024, at least 14 additional claims were disproven, highlighting how many historical assertions stemmed from rumor rather than evidence. Notable confirmed examples include medical texts bound by 19th-century physicians using skin from unclaimed cadavers or patients, often as mementos. The project is currently on hiatus, but its findings underscore the rarity of true anthropodermic books and inform ethical debates on their preservation and display as human remains.^[22]^[32]

Content Structure and Themes

Personal Investigations

Rosenbloom's personal investigations into anthropodermic books originated during her time as a medical librarian-in-training when she encountered several such volumes at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.^[5] These included books donated by physicians Dr. Joseph Leidy and Dr. John Stockton Hough in the 19th century, purportedly bound in skin from a deceased patient who had donated their body for medical study.^[33] The encounter sparked her morbid curiosity about the practice's ties to respectable medical history rather than solely sensationalism, prompting her to pursue further examples beyond the museum's collection.^[4] Driven by this interest, Rosenbloom expanded her quests to libraries and archives across the United States and Europe, conducting hands-on examinations of suspected anthropodermic volumes.^[5] Her travels involved cross-continental journeys to assess books through initial non-destructive methods, such as scrutinizing visual cues like book size, handwritten provenance notes, and patterns of hair follicles or pores on the bindings, which historically served as preliminary indicators before modern verification.^[33] These expeditions often required coordinating with custodians wary of publicizing potentially macabre holdings, revealing a network of institutions safeguarding such items amid ethical concerns over display and access.^[9] In her accounts, Rosenbloom details intimate interactions with these artifacts, including tactile assessments that evoked reflections on the human origins of the bindings—frequently linked to unclaimed bodies from medical dissections or, in rarer cases, donors like executed criminals who requested post-mortem bookbinding.^[4] One notable anecdote involves tracing a book's provenance to a 19th-century figure whose skin was used without explicit consent, underscoring the era's lax bodily autonomy norms in medical practice.^[8] These personal forays not only cataloged potential candidates for scientific testing but also humanized the anonymous remains, prompting Rosenbloom to grapple with the tension between historical preservation and respect for the deceased.^[5]

Historical Case Studies

One prominent historical case involves Mary Lynch, a 28-year-old Irish immigrant who died on January 20, 1869, at Philadelphia General Hospital from trichinosis, marking the first diagnosed case in the United States.^[34] During her autopsy, physician John Stockton Hough removed portions of her skin from her chest and legs, which a local tanner processed into leather without her consent or family's knowledge.^[35] Hough used this leather to bind three copies of his own medical texts on the case, including "A Case of Trichinosis Fatal to Man," which are now held at the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.^[17] Peptide mass spectrometry conducted by the Anthropodermic Book Project in 2015 confirmed the bindings as human skin, distinguishing them from animal leather through analysis of collagen peptides.^[34] Another documented instance is the 1837 memoir Narrative of the Life of James Allen, Alias George Walton, Alias Jonas Pierce, Alias James H. York, Alias Burley Grove, the Highwayman, written by the convicted robber James Allen (also known as George Walton) while imprisoned in Boston.^[36] Allen, who died on September 28, 1837, from tuberculosis, explicitly requested on his deathbed that skin from his back and chest be tanned and used to bind two copies of his confession—one presented to John Fenno, a boy he admired for intervening in a fight, and the other to the Atheneum.^[37] Boston bookbinder Peter Low executed the binding, treating the skin to resemble gray deerskin, and the Fenno copy remains at the Boston Athenaeum, where forensic tests, including histological examination, have verified its human origin.^[38] This case stands out for Allen's consent, contrasting with non-consensual medical extractions typical of the era.^[36] A third example is a copy of Arsène Houssaye's Des destinées de l'âme humaine (Destinies of the Human Soul), published around 1880, held by Harvard University's Houghton Library until 2024.^[39] Houssaye reportedly gifted the book to a friend whose skin was used for the binding, sourced from an unidentified deceased individual, though the exact provenance remains unclear.^[40] In 2014, Harvard confirmed the binding via peptide mass fingerprinting, matching human reference samples against the book's protein markers.^[41] The university removed and retired the skin in March 2024, citing ethical concerns over non-consensual use and historical insensitivity, while preserving the text block.^[39] These cases, concentrated in the 19th century among physicians with access to cadavers, illustrate anthropodermic bibliopegy's ties to medical practice and personal commemoration, with only about 18 of over 50 alleged examples verified scientifically to date.^[24]

Ethical and Philosophical Dimensions

The ethical dimensions of anthropodermic bibliopegy center on the absence of consent in sourcing human skin, often harvested from unclaimed bodies, executed criminals, or vulnerable individuals like psychiatric patients without permission or family knowledge.^[23]^[32] In one documented case, French physician Ludovic Bouland bound an 1880s volume of Des Destinées de l'Ame using skin from a deceased female patient at his asylum, noting in an inscription that the material's "fine grain" suited the philosophical content on the soul's destiny, yet proceeded without ethical oversight typical of 19th-century medical practices.^[42] This raises concerns about exploitation, particularly of marginalized persons, paralleling broader historical commodification of human bodies in anatomy and pathology.^[8] Institutions holding such volumes face dilemmas between historical preservation and respect for human dignity, exemplified by Harvard University's 2024 decision to remove the skin binding from its copy of Des Destinées de l'Ame, rebind the book in facsimile leather, and place the skin in "ethical stewardship" storage inaccessible to the public.^[39]^[32] This action followed a university report on 20,000 human remains in its collections and protests demanding repatriation, arguing that continued possession perpetuates non-consensual use.^[42] Counterarguments favor contextual retention in special collections to educate on past practices, provided access is restricted and accompanied by provenance details to honor the deceased rather than sensationalize.^[43] Libraries are urged to treat verified bindings as human remains rather than mere artifacts, limiting display to prevent "ghoulish entertainment" while enabling scholarly discourse on bioethics.^[43] Philosophically, these books interrogate the post-mortem status of the human body, blurring lines between object, art, and enduring individual essence, especially when skin—intimately tied to identity—is repurposed without agency.^[43] In a post-Holocaust context, where human skin artifacts evoke industrialized desecration, preservation challenges notions of universal dignity and the ethical bounds of historical inquiry, prompting questions of whether anonymity mitigates violation or if societal evolution demands repatriation over curation.^[43] Megan Rosenbloom, in exploring these through medical history, highlights how such bindings reflect power imbalances in death practices and advocate confronting mortality openly to inform modern ethics around remains, rather than shrouding them in taboo.^[8]^[44] This tension underscores causal realities: while the bindings preserve tangible evidence of 16th- to 19th-century anatomical norms, their existence compels reevaluation of bodily autonomy beyond life, weighing epistemic value against potential retraumatization of descendants or communities.^[42]^[43]

Publication Details

Development and Release

Megan Rosenbloom's interest in anthropodermic bibliopegy originated in 2008 during a visit to the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, where she encountered antique medical texts bound in human skin by 19th-century physicians.^[3]^[45] As a medical librarian specializing in the history of medicine, she began informal research into the practice shortly after entering the field that year, driven by questions of historical authenticity and ethical implications surrounding postmortem use of human remains.^[3] This curiosity evolved into structured inquiry around 2014, coinciding with advances in peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF), a non-destructive technique for verifying human collagen in bindings.^[3] Rosenbloom co-founded the Anthropodermic Book Project, a multidisciplinary effort to scientifically test purported anthropodermic volumes held by libraries and private collections worldwide.^[45] The project entailed collaborations with conservators, forensic scientists, and institutions such as Harvard University and the National Library of Medicine; Rosenbloom traveled extensively across the United States and Europe to examine specimens, conduct archival dives, and oversee PMF analyses that confirmed human origins in about 18 of 50 tested books while debunking many others.^[45] The book's development drew directly from these investigations, integrating Rosenbloom's field notes, scientific results, and historical contextualization of the practice's ties to 19th-century medical ethics, unclaimed cadavers, and bibliopegy traditions.^[14] She emphasized themes of consent, institutional handling of human remains, and the macabre allure of such artifacts, informed by her roles in death-positive organizations like Death Salon.^[45] Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin was published in hardcover by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers, on October 20, 2020, comprising 288 pages with ISBN 978-0-374-13470-9.^[46] A paperback edition followed from Picador on October 19, 2021.^[47] The release aligned with heightened public interest in historical oddities, amplified by Rosenbloom's prior public talks and the project's growing database of verified examples.^[14]

Promotion and Editions

Dark Archives was published in hardcover by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on October 20, 2020.^[1] An audiobook edition, narrated by Justis Bolding and released concurrently, became available through platforms such as Audible.^[48] No paperback edition has been issued as of 2025.^[11] Promotion efforts centered on virtual events amid the COVID-19 pandemic, leveraging Rosenbloom's role as a medical librarian and co-founder of the Death Salon. A pre-release book talk occurred at UCLA Library on October 9, 2020, where Rosenbloom discussed her investigations into anthropodermic bibliopegy.^[49] Subsequent appearances included a virtual event with the American Antiquarian Society on March 2, 2021, and a presentation at the Bookbinders Museum focusing on human-skin bindings.^[50]^[51] Media outreach featured interviews and profiles, such as a Los Angeles Times article on October 27, 2020, highlighting Rosenbloom's research process and ethical considerations.^[45] Rosenbloom also engaged audiences through podcasts, including The Road to Now on January 4, 2021, and radio segments on WICN Public Radio on January 14, 2021.^[52]^[53] These platforms emphasized the book's blend of historical analysis, scientific verification, and personal narrative drawn from Rosenbloom's work with the Anthropodermic Book Project.^[2]

Reception

Scholarly Assessments

Scholars in library science, medical ethics, and book history have assessed Dark Archives as a valuable interdisciplinary contribution that demystifies anthropodermic bibliopegy through empirical verification, though some critique its blend of personal narrative with scholarship.^[54] ^[55] Reviews in peer-reviewed journals commend Rosenbloom's leadership in the Anthropodermic Book Project (ABP), which employed peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF)—an enzymatic analysis of collagen peptides—to test alleged human-skin bindings, confirming human origin in only about one-third of over 50 examined claims as of 2020.^[6] ^[54] This method, developed with conservator Daniel Kirby, marked a shift from anecdotal provenance to biochemical evidence, enabling precise authentication where prior techniques like histological staining had proven unreliable due to degradation or misidentification with animal parchment.^[6] Academic evaluators highlight the book's historical rigor in contextualizing 18th- and 19th-century practices, linking anthropodermic bindings to medical grave-robbing, unclaimed cadavers from poorhouses, and the era's detached clinical gaze, as exemplified by cases like the 1869 binding from Mary Lynch's skin postmortem.^[6] Rosenbloom's skepticism toward unverified legends—such as exaggerated 19th-century claims or postwar myths like Nazi human-skin artifacts—aligns with first-hand archival scrutiny, dispelling sensationalism while tracing bindings to forensic medicine texts and execution aftermaths.^[55] However, reviewers note limitations for specialists, including repetition of established sources (e.g., earlier surveys by Thompson in 1946) and omissions of key figures like Harvard's Heather Cole, suggesting it prioritizes accessibility over exhaustive novelty.^[54] Ethically, scholarly commentary praises Rosenbloom's "death-positive" framework for probing consent in historical donations—often absent in indigent cases—and modern dilemmas of displaying human remains versus repatriation or burial, as advocated by bibliographer Paul Needham.^[56] ^[6] The text connects bibliopegy to broader medical exploitation patterns, arguing preservation preserves evidentiary value for understanding past dehumanization without endorsing it, though some detect a pro-preservation bias rooted in the author's Death Salon affiliations.^[54] ^[56] Overall, these assessments position the work as advancing bibliographic forensics and ethical museology, with its 30+ pages of endnotes underscoring Rosenbloom's synthesis of primary sources, interviews, and lab results.^[55]

Public and Media Responses

Media outlets responded positively to Dark Archives, highlighting its investigative rigor and ability to humanize a macabre historical practice. The New York Times described the book as a compelling mix of scholarship, journalism, and enthusiasm, noting Rosenbloom's efforts to debunk myths such as associations with Nazi atrocities while examining 17th- to 19th-century specimens.^[4] NPR portrayed it as a thrilling detective narrative that balances historical facts with ethical reflections on consent and medical exploitation, though it observed a momentary slowdown in discussions of legal minutiae.^[5] The Los Angeles Times profiled Rosenbloom's work as a sincere exploration of anthropodermic bibliopegy, appealing to readers drawn to occult or medical oddities without descending into sensationalism, and positioned the book as a guide amid contemporary horrors.^[45] The Times Literary Supplement commended it as the first book-length study of the controversial binding technique, emphasizing its archival depth.^[57] Public interest manifested in widespread fascination with the topic's blend of history, science, and morbidity, reflected in reader reviews praising its engaging prose and revelations about verified anthropodermic volumes.^[8] Enthusiasm aligned with Rosenbloom's affiliations in death-positive communities, fostering discussions on mortality and archival ethics rather than outright revulsion.^[45] No significant public backlash emerged against the book itself, though it amplified debates on handling such artifacts, as seen in later institutional actions like Harvard's 2024 removal of a human-skin binding, where Rosenbloom critiqued hasty deaccessioning.^[32]

Criticisms and Controversies

Criticisms of the practices explored in Dark Archives center on the ethics of preserving and studying books bound in human skin, which raise questions of consent, human dignity, and the treatment of remains as cultural artifacts. Paul Needham, former head of the Scheide Library at Princeton University, has argued that such bindings exemplify predatory 19th-century medical practices and should be detached from books, with the skin subjected to cremation or burial to afford the deceased a proper interment, viewing their continued display as morally indefensible.^[58]^[6] Megan Rosenbloom, in response, maintains that removing or destroying these items sanitizes historical atrocities, preventing society from confronting the origins of modern medical ethics and consent norms, and advocates retaining them in controlled access for educational purposes.^[8] This debate gained prominence following Harvard University's 2024 decision to remove the human skin binding—confirmed via peptide mass fingerprinting in 2014—from its copy of Des destinées de l'âme (1880s), a volume on the afterlife sourced from a deceased female patient without consent, storing the skin separately in cold storage pending ethical review.^[32]^[59] Needham had lobbied Harvard for years to deaccession the binding, citing its origins in unethical autopsy practices, while Rosenbloom has critiqued such removals as overly reactive, emphasizing that these artifacts, often from unclaimed bodies of marginalized individuals, illuminate historical power imbalances rather than perpetuate harm when contextualized responsibly.^[32] Additional ethical scrutiny targets the non-consensual nature of anthropodermic bibliopegy, with critics arguing that publicizing donors' stories—many from vulnerable populations like the poor or enslaved—risks further violating privacy and dignity, akin to breaches in research ethics under frameworks like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 1, 3, 5, 12).^[60] One analysis posits that Rosenbloom's investigative approach, while aiming to humanize victims, inadvertently objectifies them by prioritizing scholarly "right to know" over burial, potentially eroding trust in librarianship's handling of sensitive human materials.^[60] These concerns echo broader institutional shifts, as seen in repatriation debates for indigenous remains, underscoring tensions between historical preservation and restorative justice.^[32]

Impact and Legacy

Contributions to Scholarship

The Anthropodermic Book Project, co-founded by Megan Rosenbloom in 2015 alongside colleagues from Harvard and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, has established a comprehensive census of alleged anthropodermic books worldwide, identifying 51 suspected cases and subjecting 32 to scientific scrutiny.^[22] Of these, peptide mass fingerprinting—a proteomic technique that sequences collagen peptides to differentiate human from animal origins—confirmed 18 bindings as human skin, while disproving 14 others previously accepted on anecdotal or flawed historical evidence.^[22] ^[27] This non-destructive method, first applied to verify a human-bound volume at Harvard's Houghton Library in 2014, surpasses earlier approaches like nitroprusside tests, which often damaged artifacts and yielded inconclusive results due to degradation or contamination.^[61] These validations have refined scholarly understanding of anthropodermic bibliopegy's prevalence and contexts, revealing most confirmed exemplars as 19th-century creations by European and American physicians using skin from cadavers, surgical excisions, or unclaimed bodies—frequently with documented consent forms or as memento mori for medical texts on anatomy and pathology.^[3] Rosenbloom's archival tracing of donors' identities, such as Joseph Guichard Duverney's skin in a French anatomical atlas or a suicide victim's in a Philadelphia ledger, integrates forensic history with biography, challenging myths of widespread criminality or grave-robbing while highlighting era-specific attitudes toward the body in medicine.^[7] In library and archival sciences, the project advances protocols for authenticating and preserving rare bindings, emphasizing minimal intervention to retain collagen integrity for future analysis amid debates over deaccessioning or repatriation to descendants.^[62] By disseminating findings through public-facing documentation and Rosenbloom's synthesis in Dark Archives, it fosters interdisciplinary scholarship at the nexus of material culture, bioethics, and conservation, enabling historians to reassess collections previously dismissed as hoaxes or embellished lore.^[63]

Modern Ethical Debates

In March 2024, Harvard Library removed the human skin binding from a copy of Arsène Houssaye's Des destinées de l'âme (1880s), concluding that the remains—sourced without consent by French physician Ludovic Bouland from a deceased female patient—no longer had a place in its collections due to ethical concerns over objectification and lack of provenance.^[39] The decision stemmed from a 2022 Harvard report on human remains stewardship, which highlighted problematic origins, and involved consultations with university affiliates and French authorities; the library now seeks a respectful disposition for the skin while preserving the book's interior pages.^[39] This action exemplifies broader tensions between deaccessioning human-derived artifacts and retaining them for scholarly insight, with critics of preservation arguing that such bindings violate modern standards of bodily autonomy and dignity, particularly given the historical exploitation of unclaimed cadavers from hospitals, asylums, or executions.^[32] Proponents, including librarian Megan Rosenbloom, counter that destruction erases evidence of 18th- and 19th-century commodification of the poor and marginalized, preventing education on evolving consent norms and medical ethics; she posits that contextual display restores narrative agency to the deceased by illuminating their stories rather than sanitizing history.^[5] Rosenbloom's Anthropodermic Book Project, which verified 18 genuine examples by 2020 through peptide mass fingerprinting, underscores their rarity and value as primary sources on past attitudes toward human tissue.^[5] Debates also parallel repatriation efforts for indigenous remains under frameworks like the U.S. Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990, though anthropodermic books—predominantly European in origin—lack equivalent legal mandates, prompting ad hoc institutional policies.^[32] Some libraries, post-review, have chosen non-display storage or ethical relabeling over removal, prioritizing long-term access for research into bioethics and cultural history, while acknowledging past sensationalism in handling, such as Harvard's own 2014 confirmations that drew public fascination without sufficient victim-centered framing.^[32]^[39] These discussions, amplified since the 2010s via scientific authentication efforts, reveal no consensus, with causal factors including heightened scrutiny of institutional holdings amid movements against colonial-era collections.^[5]

Recent Developments

In March 2024, Harvard University Library removed the human skin binding from a copy of Arsène Houssaye's Des destinées de l'âme (c. 1880s), which had been in its collection since 1934 and confirmed via peptide mass fingerprinting in 2014 as containing human skin from an unidentified female donor.^[39] The decision followed consultations with experts and descendants of Houssaye, prioritizing ethical considerations over historical preservation, including non-invasive documentation of the skin prior to removal and rebinding in plant-based material.^[32] This action highlighted tensions between archival integrity and modern sensitivities toward human remains, with the library committing to broader reviews of its anthropodermic holdings.^[64] In April 2025, a previously rediscovered volume bound in human skin—a 19th-century French medical text—was placed on public display at the Museum of London Docklands, marking one of the few recent instances of such artifacts being exhibited post-confirmation.^[65] The book, sourced from a private collection and verified through scientific analysis, underscores ongoing interest in anthropodermic bibliopegy amid ethical reevaluations, though details on the donor and binding provenance remain limited to protect privacy.^[65] These events reflect a shift in institutional approaches since 2020, with libraries increasingly favoring de-accessioning or delisting human-derived materials to align with contemporary bioethics, influenced by advocacy from groups like the Anthropodermic Book Project, which continues testing suspected bindings but reports no major new confirmations beyond prior tallies of approximately 18 verified cases worldwide as of early 2020s data.^[32] Such developments prioritize donor dignity and consent frameworks absent in historical practices, potentially reducing public access to originals while spurring digital surrogates and scholarly discourse on medical history.^[39]

References

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Peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF)[1], [2],[3],[4] can identify mammalian sources of collagen-based materials such as bookbindings, leather, and parchment.
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Anthropodermic bibliopegy, or books bound in human skin, are some of the most mysterious and misunderstood books in the world's libraries and museums.
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Apr 23, 2025 · A rediscovered copy of a book bound in human skin is going on display at a museum in England, reports BBC News' Laura Foster.