Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation Into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin

Written by Megan Rosenbloom

Narrated by Justis Bolding

On bookshelves around the world, surrounded by ordinary books bound in paper and leather, rest other volumes of a distinctly strange and grisly sort: those bound in human skin. Would you know one if you held it in your hand?

 

In Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom seeks out the historic and scientific truths behind anthropodermic bibliopegy—the practice of binding books in this most intimate covering. Dozens of such books live on in the world’s most famous libraries and museums. Dark Archives exhumes their origins and brings to life the doctors, murderers, and indigents whose lives are sewn together in this disquieting collection. Along the way, Rosenbloom tells the story of how her team of scientists, curators, and librarians test rumored anthropodermic books, untangling the myths around their creation and reckoning with the ethics of their custodianship. 

 

A librarian and journalist, Rosenbloom is a member of The Order of the Good Death and a cofounder of their Death Salon, a community that encourages conversations, scholarship, and art about mortality and mourning. In Dark Archives—captivating and macabre in all the right ways—she has crafted a narrative that is equal parts detective work, academic intrigue, history, and medical curiosity: a book as rare and thrilling as its subject.

 

Winner of the 2021 Best Monograph Award from LAMPHHS (Librarians, Archivists, & Museum Professionals in the History of the Health Sciences)

 

“Part scholar, part journalist, part wide-eyed death enthusiast, Rosenbloom takes readers on her own journey to understand how and why human-skin books came to be. … She includes no shortage of memorable scientific minutiae and clarifications of misunderstood history along the way.”—James Hamblin, The New York Times Book Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781980096061

Megan Rosenbloom

Megan Rosenbloom is a librarian with a research interest in the history of medicine and rare books. Formerly a medical librarian and journalist, she is now the collection strategies librarian at UCLA Library in Los Angeles. She is also the president of the Southern California Society for the History of Medicine. She is a member of the Anthropodermic Book Project, a multidisciplinary team scientifically testing alleged human skin books around the world to verify their human origin. A proponent of the death-positive movement, she was also the cofounder and director of Death Salon, the events arm of the Order of the Good Death.

Reviews for Dark Archives

[Ari Stanley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Chocked full of fascinating information! Highly recommended for any fans of weird history

[Alex Bourne · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

It’s not the book that is the problem. It’s the recording available on Scribd which is full of gaps and skips. Virtually unlistenable.

[cabracrazy18 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a fantastic book about books, diving into the lore and mystique of books claiming to be bound in human skin and the stories behind them.

[dylkit · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wide-ranging, well researched and engagingly written.

[grammapollyreads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fair warning, if you are disturbed by descriptions of murder, surgery, and/or autopsies, this is probably not the book for you.

After having this book on my TBR list for over a year, I finally had a chance to read it over the weekend. While the specified topic of anthropodermic bibliopegy is covered very well, I liked that Rosenbloom added a great deal of detail about the intersection of criminal justice, medical practice, and social issues (such as women and race). This is a pretty extreme rabbit hole adventure as the actual instances of verified anthropodermic bibliopegy is a very small set; however, the overlapping nonverified and blatantly fake instances mean that the hunt for information means constantly checking and rechecking information. The book explains the science being used to verify books that have been identified. But the inclusion of the history of how the criminals justice system suppled cadavers for study and how graverobbers supplied bodies and the odd instance of serial killers supplying bodies created a clear picture of the era in which these books came to be. The discussion of how the view of a dead human body in the 19th century was quite different from what most people think now.

All in all, this was another book that provided an excellent cross section of many topics within a historical context. It is also a book ttat may raise questions about one's personal beliefs on the subject without being preachy about how the author views the topic.

[iffland · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Side note: I was a bit disappointed - lots of the book mentioned could not have been tested so the answers whether some books are anthropodermic remain unclear.

[griffin_reads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dark Archives follows Megan Rosenbloom's investigations into anthropodermic bibliopegy, or the practice of binding books in human skin. Not only does it look at actual examples of the practice, but it also discusses the testing used to determine the real examples from the fakes, explains the stories of several real and fake examples, looks into historical medical ethics, how the practice was done, and current international laws on similar practices.

I found the book fascinating. There is so much that can be learned about the cultures of the people partaking in this by researching the practice. I don't agree with all of Rosenbloom's takes on the topic, but I was in particular agreement that these artifacts, both the real ones and the fakes, are actual parts of our human history and can be used to educate people on things like history, medical and legal ethics, culture, racism, and misogyny, and that these objects are inherently valuable because of this.

I think it would have been good for Rosenbloom to discuss in more detail the actual effects of racism and misogyny that this practice creates, as it seems like these were mostly glossed over in the book. A good first step in doing this would have been to be upfront with the results of the PMF testing before discussing the, sometimes alleged and sometimes real, stories of these books, as then the readers would know going into a story if it was an actual example or not. In not revealing the PMF results until the end of each book's story, it can make the reader confused as to which ones are real and which aren't, thereby lessening the impact on the reader of the racism and misogyny used to create the books.

The two biggest things this book could have done better are the aforementioned deeper discussions on how racism and misogyny impacted this practice, as well as including better transitions between chapters, as it occasionally felt a bit disjointed. That being said, there has been little research done on this practice, and this book is a good start into what could be an entire field of research. I would like to read more on this topic from a more intersectional lens, but I did thoroughly enjoy this book.

[adaorhell · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

not as thrilling as one would suspect

[rubberkeyhole · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was provided an advanced copy of this book by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I should admit, I am a bit biased; I am a longtime follower (and member) of the Order of the Good Death, as well as Twitter follower of Megan Rosenbloom. I have studied death and dying and Immortality Theory in college and postgrad - so this book is right in my wheelhouse.

I am such a nerd when it comes to history and all of the answers to "but why?" and "but how?" - I need to know the inner workings, not just of what you're examining, but of the rationale of the person who decided it needed to exist. Rosenbloom did an incredible job of this - and with incredible care and consideration for all people and scientific research involved.

[jbd1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As good a treatment of books bound in human skin as we're likely to get. Rosenbloom's interest is obvious, and she manages to tread the fine line between making such a book too precious and too ghoulish. Her background and involvement with the ongoing scientific project to actually identify these bindings add much to the book.  

[juva_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As a death-positive librarian and lover of all things morbid, this book is definitely right up my alley. Not only was I fascinated by the history of anthropodermic books, I was astonished to learn most of them are merely rumors. Very few have been tested, and the author of this book is on a mission to test all the purported human skin bound books that she can.

She is also a medical librarian and this book is full of thoughtful discussions of the complex moral issues surrounding anthropodermic books as well as the display and collection of other human artifacts. I hadn't really considered the origin of skin bound books, but I think I assumed it was mostly occult books. But in fact, not one occult book has been proven to be bound in human skin, although obviously this can change. Most books are medical in nature and have been created by doctors with skin likely stolen from their patients.

I found this book captivating from beginning to end and highly recommend it to those who share my particular morbid fascinations.

[bodagirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't know if a more macabre topic exists, but Rosenbloom treats the topic with a mixture of academic curiosity and medical ethics that balance each other nicely.

[spinsterrevival · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well this was fascinating and not quite as macabre as I thought it’d be. The subtitle tells the basics, but the author weaves an interesting mix of medical history, library science (I wish I’d learned some of this in my rare books class), and collectors. FYI the audiobook was a good listen, although the narrator’s French accent for some readings was pretty bad.

[brangwinn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a book about which I said, “Wow, librarians do research like this?” Megan Rosenbloom tells the details of her search to find anthropodermic books…books with covers made of human skin. I expected the book to be a lot more creepy---perfect for October reading, but instead it was a fascinating, knowledgeable look at a complex issue. Miss Rosenbloom is a terrific storyteller taking the scientific and historical details and making what could be dry information into an intriguing book filled with detail and accuracy.

[vadersmorwen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a fascinating read for anyone interested in macabre books.
The author is a librarian! This may be the most exciting part for me to know.
She is able to do thorough research and give us the information in a simplified way, as you would expect from a proper librarian!
She goes thru different books in collections that may or may not be covered in human skin!
She is able to get samples and have them tested, she also goes thru the history of how the books, or why the books are covered in human skin.
This is a fascinating subject!

[nielsengw_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It’s called anthropodermic bibliopegy, but behind the jargon lurks an unsettling science – the art of binding books in tanned and treated human skin. Megan Rosenbloom, a librarian at UCLA, and her colleague Daniel Kirby, a chemist from Northeastern University, have pioneered a technique to determine whether the leather binding from a given book is human or some other mammal. It’s an eerie gig to be in, for sure, but knowing where a binding comes from gives a book that much more history.

Rosenbloom journeys across the United States and Europe to detail the histories and finding from testing various reputed human skin books. Each volume tested has a story, and those stories reveal a little more about both the makers and the takers. Some skin was used surreptitiously, some was used after being given purposefully.

There’s Dr. John Hough, who used the skin of a tuberculosis victim at his hospital to bind medical texts. And there’s James Allen, who recited his autobiography to Charles Lincoln on his deathbed in jail, and requested that his skin be used to bind two copies of the book: one for the stenographer and one for John Fenno, a man he tried to rob but turned the tables on Allen.

Rosenbloom’s investigations into the origins and ethics of human skin books are fascinating to say the least, and the questions she raises tend to reflect more modern sensibilities of bodily ownership and the limits of propriety. If this subject is the least bit interesting to you, I highly recommend this book. It reads quickly, but will linger longer than the afternoon it will take to finish.