Harvard University revealed that they own a book about soul and after-life that literally covered in human skin.
The university announced that Houghton Library’s copy of Arsène Houssaye’s "Des destinées de l’ame" is "without a doubt bound in human skin."
Samples from the binding went through multiple tests before researchers concluded they were "99.9% confident that the binding is of human origin."
19th century French writer Houssaye's book is a collection of essays meditating on the soul and the after-life, according to Harvard.
As the story goes, Houssaye gave the book to his friend, Dr. Ludovic Bouland, who then had it rebound and left a manuscript note explaining why.
"This book is bound in human skin parchment on which no ornament has been stamped to preserve its elegance. By looking carefully you easily distinguish the pores of the skin. A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering: I had kept this piece of human skin taken from the back of a female mental patient whose body was unclaimed after dying from a stroke.
As The Atlantic reports, anthropodermic bibliopegy, or the practice of binding books in human skin, was "somewhat common" in the past.
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