The Harvard University Library removed the
human skin used in the binding of a copy of the book
"Des destinées de l'âme", by the French writer Arsène Houssaye, even though it had known its origin since 2014. The fact caused a great stir in the educational entity located near Boston, which had to apologize for "the mistakes made" with the copy.
"Reality is stranger than fiction," says the saying that seems to gain more strength on American soil after the controversial withdrawal of the "rare" copy bound with human skin.
Fiction, both in literature by the hand of Lovecraft, and in cinema, through the lens of director Sam Raimi, has spoken of the "Necronomicon", a book linked to death and spells. It was made, with variants, according to authors and times, with human remains. Meat, bone and skin.
"Destinies of the Soul"
is the translation of the original title that got Harvard into trouble. It was written by the French novelist Arsène Houssaye in 1879 and is about life after death.
The version in question arrived at the university library in 1934, through the American diplomat and Harvard alumnus John B. Stetson. Twenty years later his widow Ruby Stetson officially donated it.
This was the cover of the book "Des destinées de l'âme", which Harvard University has now removed from its library. AFP Photo / Houghton Library
Considered a rare book, the copy went to the Houghton Library in 1944, where it had remained until now. The human origin of the material used in the binding was confirmed only in 2014. Now, ten years later, that cover was removed and the institution had to
apologize "for the failures in the management of the book."
"The Harvard Library recognizes past failures in book management that further objectified and compromised the dignity of the human being whose remains were used for its binding. We apologize to those negatively affected by these actions," they explained from the renowned entity. academic.
The library's apologies and the new "life" of the book that talks about death
"We apologize on behalf of the Harvard Library for past failures in our book management," Tom Hyry, curator of archives and special collections at the Houghton Library, said in a statement.
"We can be reasonably certain that Bouland removed and used the skin
without consent
," Anne-Marie Eze, associate librarian at Houghton Library, said in the same statement.
"In March 2024, 'Des destinées de l'âme' was unbound, removing the human skin cover," the text adds.
In a note accompanying the book, written by John Stetson and which has been lost, Bouland was said to have used the skin from the body of an
unknown patient from a French psychiatric hospital
.
The book itself, without the binding, was digitized and is available to the public, Hyry says. On Amazon, for its part, it is available for 5 euros in digital and almost 15, in "pocket" format. On the Mercado Libre platform, however, it is not available: a latest record locates a volume sold for more than 68 thousand pesos.
"The human skin used to bind the book is not available, either in person or digitally, to any researcher," Hyry said, after specifying that the library began "imposing restrictions on access (to the book)" in 2015.
The Boston academic center will consult with the competent authorities of the University and France to "determine a respectful final destination for these human remains."
New regulations on human remains
Harvard University's decision comes at a time when institutions are reviewing their collections' exhibition and conservation policies. The demands of this new era strip away traditions and customs that were outdated and out of step with the present.
On January 12, a federal regulation came into force that requires museums to obtain the consent of the descendants of indigenous peoples for the exhibition of their cultural, sacred and funerary heritage.
Although the exhibition of human remains in museums is prohibited, the new regulations give institutions until 2029 to prepare said remains and funerary objects and return them to their places of origin.
In compliance with this regulation, museums such as the Peabody of Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, the Museum of Natural Sciences in New York or the Cleveland Museum of Art, have already removed sensitive objects from the cultural and sacred heritage of the country's indigenous peoples. .
This time, for similar reasons, it was Harvard's turn.
The doctor behind a macabre and dark 19th century technique
The French physician and bibliographer
Ludovic Bouland
(1839-1933) was the first owner of the volume. The book was given to him by his friend Arsène Houssaye, the writer who published the work in 1879, at the age of 65. It arrived with binding without extravagance. Bouland took care of giving it his personal touch.
Ludovic Bouland, the doctor behind binding books with human skin. Photo KU Leuven Libraries Special Collections
The doctor decided to cover it with a special covering made of human skin. The excuse was recorded in an annotation:
"A book about the human soul deserved to have a human cover."
Bouland was, in addition to being a doctor, an enthusiast of
anthropodermic bibliopegy
, the name by which the technique of binding works in human tissue is known. According to the BBC, there are antecedents that date back to this artisanal work to the 16th century.
The volume on the soul was not the only one that had a cover made of that material. He also requested it for "De integritatis et corruptionis virginum notis", by the doctor Séverin Pineau (1560-1619), a treatise that compiles articles on virginity and pregnancy and which was published in 1650. Pineau was also surgeon to King Henry IV of France.
Almost two centuries after Bouland's death, this book currently belongs to the collection of the Wellcome Library in London. That institution has another volume that boasts of being decorated with the same technique, a notebook with a label that traces the story back to the slave Crispus Attucks, murdered in the Boston Massacre: "The cover of this book is made of tanned leather of the black man whose execution provoked the War of Independence".
Studies, however, have proven that warning to be false.
Who was Arsène Houssaye, the author of the book bound with human skin
According to the official site of the Miguel Cervantes Library, the French novelist Arsène Houssaye was born in 1815 and died in 1896 and wrote not only novels, but also dozens of other works, in addition to having been editor of different publications. Biographies define him as "satirist" and "poet."
Henry Houssaye, the French writer author of the book "The Destinies of the Soul." Now Harvard removed the human skin covering.
He had three children and one of them stood out as a historian.
Between 1849 and 1859 he was in charge of the administration of the French Theater and in 1863 he discovered human remains that apparently belonged to Leonardo Da Vinci. These were next to fragments of earth that read "EO [...] DUS VINC".
Houssaye died in Paris. This Thursday, March 28, the 209th anniversary of his birth, Harvard University's decision brought him back to life for a while.