Bamboula? Sure. Crispus Attucks? Definitely. But one must, at this point, bring in another interesting character. Though he isn’t named, his story is worth a thousand words…I think. The book in question is…
…Histoire Generale des Larrons…A General History of Thieves. Henri de Halsalle, author of Romance of First Editions, saw a copy of this book, with black binding. And oh my!
It is said to be in the hide of a Negro sailor who had run amok aboard ship, hacking to death with a cutlass half of the crew before the surviviors could swing him aloft and riddle his carcass with shot…corrobrative marks you may observe on the binding.”
So apparently the book was bound with the skin of a black, amok-running sailor, and the binding also had bullet holes in it.
Sometimes, or so the saying goes, turnabout is fair play. This is what happened with a little book called…
…Little Poems for Little Folks (1847). Besides teaching us how to sing…Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and giving us the means to practice our ABCs and counting to 10, not to mention curious characters such as Growler the Naughty Dog who gets no breakfast, a copy of this little childrens’ book was found to have been bound in skin taken from the arm of a book collector. This can also be an enduring legacy for a scholar who chooses this route. Such was the case with Professor Queensby, an instructor of Greek classics at Cambridge. He left instructions that after his death, his skin should be flayed and used to bind a copy of his favorite book…
…Homer’s Iliad. But it’s unclear as to whether these instructions were followed. The Iliad is no doubt a classic. But so too is…
…Bibliotheca…The Library, by Psuedo-Apollodorus (actual book shown).
One of the greatest centers of German scholarship was the University of Gottingen. German bookbinder Paul Kersten, who comes up repeatedly in this essay, claimed that the library at Gottingen had, as one of its prized possessions, a rare copy of a seminal work by…
…Hippocrates of Cos…the Father of Medicine, author of the Hippocratic Oath, and not, I assert, a hypocrit. He fancied himself somewhat of a proctologist, and came up with a horrifying cure for hemorhoids…
…ouch! Anuses weren’t his only interest. He wrote about a whole bunch of medical topics. And so Kersten claimed that Gottingen had a copy of Hippocrates writings bound in human skin. There are various, smallish treatises written by Hippocrates, but it seems likely that the work in questions was…
…a form of the Hypocritical Corpus.. Wait, that’s not right. I meant the Hippocratic Corpus, which contains many writings from different sources, or, perhaps even more likely, the geniune writings of Hippocrates.
On the subject of classics, I offer you one of Greece’s greatest poets of all times. Yes, Pindar…who else? And when you think about Pindar, you also think of…Dr. Winans. He was a collector of books, and he had a true pride-and-joy volume…
…Carminum poetarum novem, lyricae poeseos principum fragmenta. That’s the shortened form of the title. Dr. Winans’ copy was treated as a veritable holy relic…without the holy part. It was correctly described as having Greek and Latin in parallel columns on each half of the page. The font was troublesome…even a scholar would have trouble making it out. There are more poetry books relevant here. The Natural Library of Australia is holding an 1829 version of…
The Poetical Works of Rogers, Campbell, J. Montgomery, Lamb, and Kirke White; complete in one volume. Attached to the item description in the library’s catalogue is…
Charles Egleton (London) bookbinder’s label inside front cover, pencilled note on front free-end paper which reads: Bound in human skin; Confirmed.
According to Thompson, an American book collector named Samuel Putnam possessed a mysterious book. Following his death, he left it to one of his nieces, who in turn, loaned it to the Watkinson Library in Hartford, Connecticut… Le Traicte de Peyne, The Treatise on Pain. There is another story about another volume of this book, this time in Reims, France. In 1866, Jean-Charles Loriquet, curator of the library in the city, was presented a “handwritten old novel” by Eugene Paillet and a Mr. Robilliard. The small book contained a poem decidicated to Antoine, Duke of Lorraine, and Renee de Bourbon, Duchess of Lorraine…
This is a more than fascinatingly fascinating book. It has the ever-popular theme of the strange finding of a secret book, in this case in the Chateau de Guise, which reminds one of the mysterious finding of the Book of Deuteronomy in the Jerusalem Temple. And it was during a burial that the book was found. The book was written in the early 16th century and supposedly found in the castle in 1793. It purports to have been written by three men, one of whom wrote under the strange nom de plume…Tant-Brun. In the book, Tant-Brun is one a group of three friends who call themselves…the Penitents of the House of Arches. However, the otherwise unknown writer stated…
By three friends, yet the three are one…The Penitents of your House d'Arches
So it is clear that there was only writer, and the group of three is a literary device. Thus only one man suffered from the disease he contracted while off fighting in an unspecified war. Along with the poem appear 16 images…
The story is a simple one. Three young men come home from an unspecified war. And they have a problem…a big problem. The steps they took to deal with that problem are basic, they leave in order to visit a hospital owned by Duke Antoine and Duchess Renee. They are admitted, one is bedridden, yet another can be seen taking a sulphur bath. The men are eventually cured and are able to leave the hospital. The third man? All three men are one man, so there is a progression from arrival, to laid up in bed, to sulphur baths. Then he is fit enough to leave and go about his life. This work is a cautionary tale. I’ve seen the story described different ways, with many commentators claiming that the book is about sex. One commentator even said that the story is about BDSM. No, the story is clear, France and Italy had a series of wars, and a devstating outbreak of Sphylis occurred in 1495 when French invaded Italy. It wasn’t for nothing that the French called Syphilis…the Evil of Naples. And VD has been a major problem during war…
…a rather humorous poster from WW2. But during both world wars, veneral disease was a very real problem. And so it is for our Three-But-One Tant-Brun. But the story does not end there. One volume of the book…
…was bound in human skin (actual book shown). Poems, poems, and more poetic poems…
…The Georgics of Virgil, as translated by the French poet Jacques Delille (actual book shown). As the story goes, Delille held the chair of Latin Poetry at the College de France. Upon his death, his protégé Pierre Jacques Tissot (right) succeeded him. A young law student named Aime Leroy was able to get Tissot to allow him to see the dead body of Delille. While doing this, he removed skin from Delille’s chest and leg. He used the skin to bind his own copy of The Georgics. He later, when confronted for this, claimed he only did so only to ensure that the memory of such an important figure as Delille lived on. The book was passed on to Edmund Leroy, son of the lawyer Aime Leroy, who claimed to still own it. The Georgics isn’t the only French translation of a classical work with such rumours surrounding it. The 1597 French translation of…
…Ovid’s Olympe, Metamorphose d’Ovide of 1957, currently held in the Harvard Library, has been bound in human skin. The book shown is the actual book.
Yet another classical writer is…
…Aulus Cornelius Celsus, who wrote about medical topics, and is not to be equated with the Celsus linked to the anti-Christian book…The True Logos. A copy of the 1722 edition of Medicina is rumored to have been bound in human skin…
'The most infamous book in the JW Scott Health Sciences Library's Rawlinson Rare Book Collection is the "Celsi de medicina libri octo". Published in 1722, this is the book that is purported to be bound in human skin.'
The example of John Stockton-Hough links the binding of books to medical works. In 1737, a London doctor named Thomas Gibbs published a book titled…Anatomy Epitomized and Illustrated. The book discussed human anatomy, and included pictorial plates of the parts of the human body…
The early editions of the book are very rare, so too the plates. However, this copy turned up in the Huntington Library…
Yes, it’s bound in human skin. The last owner of the book was Dr Blake H Watson, but the name J.W. Hamilton appears in it. Watson had been the chair of the obstetrics department at St. John’s Medical Center in Santa Monica. J.W. Hamilton (147 Kent Street, St. Paul, Minnesota) wrote patriotic literature, and was closely associated with the Magna Charta Association. I’m not sure why an obscure medical book, one bound in human skin, would have been in his possession.
John Cordy Jeaffreson was a novelist who also wrote a book about doctors titled…A Book About Doctors…
Originally, it was published in two volumes in 1860 and 1861. The claims made about this book came from Dr. Mathew Wood of Philadelphia, who claimed to have owned both volumes. Wood also claimed to own the well-liked novel…
…The Story of Gil Blas of Santillane, titled…The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane in English. The novel was authored by Alain-Rene Lesage, and published during the period 1715-1735, going through several translations. The book would eventually contain various illustrations. The problem with the claim of Dr. Wood is that he claimed the books were bound with the skin of a German law student named Ernst Kauffman. The story goes that Ernst, a failure at writing, chose to live on by collecting 200 woodcuts of famous men, which purportedly went under the name… Zwei Hundert beruhmte Manner, and was bound with Kauffmann’s own skin. So the Gil Blas edition referenced above, and a special three volume set called…
…Les Episodes de la vie des Insectes…Episodes of the Life of insects. Written in 1851 by L.M Budgeon under the nom de plume Acheta Domestica (common cricket), the book includes illustrations and poetry. The combination of water + skeleton + swarming insects reminds one of the dreaded, though fictional, scaphism. However, I’m sure that isn’t what Cricket Lady had in mind.
And who was the skin donor for these books? That is a subject of some debate. One story names him as Ernest Kauffman, a German medical student who longed to be a writer. Frustrated by his inability to be noted as an author, he decreed that, following his death, his skin should be used to bind his favorite books. Another story names as Karl Kaufman. At the age of 24, he emigrated to America. Unable to become a writer, he taught German. One of his pupils was, of course…Mathew Woods, who also his physician. In his will, he specified the binding of his three favorite books in his skin. Yet a third story refers to him as Antone Kaufmann, and states that he was beloved by a princess. Kaufmann became a student, traveler, tutor and…Man of Mystery. But in this instance, Woods did not know that Kaufmann’s skin was used to bind the three books. In addition, Kaufmann refuses to state what country he was from. It is said of Kaufmann…he remained a mystery at the time, and ever since. Woods embarks on a search for the identity of the mysterious man named Antone Kaufmann, traveling around Europe on his quest. How did Wood know about Kaufmann? They met in the drawing room of a rich family in Pennsylvania. Did he teach German? Well, he also knew French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, and Latin. Woods was able to find out more about Mysterious Kaufmann. He discovered that he had been exiled from Germany because of some military mishap. He nonetheless able to woo a German princess, whom he doesn’t identify, but Woods, searching Kaufmann’s room, finds a picture of a young woman, with…H.R.H Helen- Love for all time. It also emerged that he taught in the Papal schools in Rome. Oh wait. Kaufmann, a god among men, was also a master of the piano. Oh wait. Kaufmann, having descended from Olympus, was also an accomplished dancer. Oh wait. He knew all about art, and had a thorough knowledge of the nobles of Europe. So it comes as no surprise that the Divine Kaufmann has an art collection, having plunder temples in Siam; Egypt; Japan; Java; and India. Oh wait…isn’t that stealing? Oh wait! He was also an expert at fencing…perhaps selling some of his amazing works of art; sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun. But that’s what happened, our Poor Kaufmann turned out to be mortal. He developed Tuberculosis, and had to pawn the Mona Lisa, well…something like that. Confined to his bed, he asked that Edgar Horace, Wood’s assistant, be brought to him. Kaufmann told Horace that he wanted his skin to bind…Wood’s three books? Not in this story. No. He wants his skin to be used to bind as many books as possible. Unbeknownst to Woods, Horace took the skin of Kaufmann and honored the young German’s request. Dr. Woods, despite having a virtual dossier on him, he seeks to learn even more, but runs up against a problem…a convenient as far as this myth is concerned.
In later years Dr. Woods tracked down clues that might lead to establishing Kaufmann’s identity. Aside from finding that his dead friend was a graduate of Heidelberg University and the Papal schools. Dr. Woods has learned nothing. From half-facts and surmises, he has pieced together the theory that Kaufmann fought a duel while in the army for the love of a beautiful young Princess, who picture was found in his room, and that he fled his country, most likely Germany. That is the story of Antone that Dr. Woods tells to his close friends in his library as he shows them the seven books.
Bravo! Dr. Woods is quite the Spinner of Yarns. In all versions of the myth, the man who speaks all the languages to be found on earth, Kaufmann put together a series images of famous German men. Actually, 200 of them. These he included a book…a book that was, needless to say though I’ll say it anyway, bound in his skin. There is no evidence that this book ever existed, and it is clear that Ernst Karl Antone Kaufmann is simply a fictional character in a myth that has several versions.
A strange story has been told about an obscure book called…
…Die Knocherne Hand…The Bony Hand. This would appear to be the novel known as…Die knocherne Hand und Anderes…The Bony Hand and Other Things, by Karl Hans Strobl. The book is rare. And that may be something that happened post-WW2, since Strobl was an Austrian Nazi, and his works were temporarily banned after the war. He was a prolific writer of horror and fantasy novels during the period prior to the outbreak of WW2…
The story states that Germn bookbinder Paul Kersten, whose name appears elsewhere in this essay on the subject of binding books with human skin, gave an exhibition in 1913 of 12 books he had bound in human skin. That number seems high. However, Kersten wasn’t looking to sell any of his books, but one was sold without his knowledge…his copy of Die Knocherne Hand. It fetched only 75 Reichsmarks. Consequently, Kersten took the sellers to court. Eventually, a German court ruled that it had no competency for books bound in human skin, so Kersten was told to go to France. The case was then settled out of court, with Kersten receiving 175 Reichsmarks. An effort was made to track down the buyer of the book.
…and the claim was made that it was Mary Gerard, wife of James Watson Girard, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, who bought the book. Gerard steadfastly denied that his wife obtained the book, and some suspicion fell on the wife of the previous ambassador to Germany…
…Mrs. John Leishman. In reality, the purchaser of the book was never located, and no one knows what happened to the skin-book.
Yes! Guido Guidi, who went by the Latin name Vidus Vidius…
…was an Italian surgeon who lived during the years 1509-1569, and was also the personal doctor of Cosimo di Medici. One of his most books was titled…Chirurgia e graeco in latinum conversa…Surgery as Translated from Greek into Latin…
…the label on the center page is found within the copy of the book held by the Dibner Library…
This book is bound with the skin of a woman. A former owner’s name iappears in the book…Andre Uytterhoeven. The bookbinder was Josse Schavye of Brussels. The same binder was responsible for a rare medical classic by…
…Andrea Vesalius, an early pioneer of the study of human anatomy. His book is called…On the Structure of the Human Body. The bookbinder was Schavye of Brussels, and at one time, the book belonged to William Easton Louttit Jr of Providence, RI. And yes, it was actually bound…
…with human skin…Book bound with human skin. The actual book (large book on the left) is now held at the Brown University Library.
Of course, I would be amiss if I left out one of modern science’s greatest ancestors….
…Francis Bacon, whose skin-covered…Sylva Sylvarum, A Natural History in Ten Centuries…provides the forward-thinking person with numerous medical prescriptions to lengthen the span of one’s life. The book shown is the actual book.