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The library at Harvard University is home to more than 20 million books, but its collection has taken a tiny hit now that it’s no longer home to a publication with a cover made of human skin.
Harvard is one of the most prestigious learning institutions on the planet, and the oldest university in the United States is steeped in close to four centuries of history stretching back to its founding in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1636.
While it was originally used to train members of the clergy, it transformed into America’s premier destination for higher education in the 1800s and has only cemented that reputation since then.
Anyone who’s smart (or rich and connected) enough to gain admission to Harvard is able to take advantage of its many resources, including a staggeringly vast library with the third-largest collection in the country—one home to rare items like a Gutenberg Bible, original manuscripts penned by some of the world’s most famous authors, and, until recently, a tome that was bound with human skin.
According to The New York Times, the book in question is a copy of Des Destinées de L’Ame by French author Arsène Houssaye, who published his philosophical musings on the afterlife inside the volume that translates to The Destiny of Souls in 1879.
In 1934, the university received a unique copy of the book from American diplomat and cowboy hat fortune heir John B. Stetson. It had been gifted to him by a French doctor named Ludovic Bouland, who had opted to customize his copy by covering it with the human skin he commandeered from a female corpse in a psychiatric hospital (he reasoned a “book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering”).
In 2014, Harvard ran tests that confirmed the cover was indeed made of that wildly unconventional (and equally ethically questionable) form of leather, and this week, it announced it has decided to remove the exterior as it continues to reevaluate its approach to handling items containing human remains in its collections.
The contents of the book itself are still housed inside the Houghton Library, but the cover has been placed in temporary storage as officials continue to consult with “appropriate authorities at the University and in France to determine a final respectful disposition of these human remains.”