“If you look closely, you can still see the pores”: Harvard removes book made from human skin from collection

Back in 2014, tests showed that a mysterious French book from the Harvard library was made of human skin. “No longer fits today’s ethical standards,” clarified the American university, which had previously laughed about it.

After years of criticism, Harvard is removing a book made of human skin from its university collection. The French writer Arsène Houssaye had the book around 1880 About the destinies of the soul given as a gift to a doctor friend. He believed that a “book about the human soul also deserves a human twist”. For this he used the skin of a deceased psychiatric patient who no longer had any family, and therefore could not protest against his plans.

Because he was proud of the result, he also put a note in the book: “If you look closely, you can still see the pores. The piece comes from the back of a woman.” It is certainly gruesome, but the practice was not unusual in the 19th century, writes The Atlantic. Executed criminals were also sometimes skinned to get a new life as a book.

The university had previously laughed a bit about the curiosity. When it turned out in 2014 that it was actually human skin, Harvard called it “good news for bibliophiles and cannibals.” Not really respectful, according to critics, who pointed to the exemplary role of the university.

The human book is not the only questionable object in Harvard’s gigantic library. A 2022 report identified more than 20,000 human remains in the collections, ranging from complete skeletons to strands of hair, bone fragments and teeth. Among them were the remains of approximately 6,500 Native Americans, writes The New York Times.