Found out the Library of Congress has over 25,000 books bound in human skin

I was reading a really old book on binding methods from the 1800s, and it mentioned anthropodermic bibliopegy. I had to look that up. Turns out, the practice was more common than I thought, especially for medical texts. The Library of Congress holds the biggest collection, with thousands of them. It's a wild piece of binding history that feels totally different from working with leather or cloth. Has anyone here ever handled a book like that, or know more about how they were actually made?

2 comments

2 Comments

evand654d ago

Honestly that number sounds way off for the Library of Congress. From what I've read, they have a few confirmed examples, not thousands. The total known worldwide is only like a hundred books.

tyler8224d ago

Yeah evand65, saying the total known is only a hundred books worldwide is the part that got me. But what counts as "known"? A lot of private collectors and old family libraries have these things and never tell a soul or report it to any official list. The real number is probably way bigger, it's just hidden in attics and private collections nobody talks about.