Harvard removes human skin book covers from library

Harvard University will find a "resting place" for the remains of a human body used as the cover of a 19th-century book.

The announcement was made by Harvard University on March 27. Accordingly, the cover of the monograph Des Destinées de l'Ame (The Fate of the Soul) by French author Houssaye, which is said to be made from human skin, will be removed.

Additionally, interested readers will now have easier access to the book, both in libraries and online, after limited access in 2015.

This is the book has the most gruesome history among the roughly 20 million volumes in Harvard University's library. The school admitted that its handling of the book had failed to meet "ethical standards," sometimes using an inappropriately "sensationalist tone" to promote it.

Photo: Houghton Library/Harvard University

The book arrived at Harvard in 1934, via American diplomat John B. Stetson. In a memo, Stetson said that Ludovic Bouland, a French doctor, had removed skin from a woman's corpse at the Mental Hospital to make the book's cover. Bouland also left a note inside: "The book of the human soul must be 'protected' by itself."

The material of the book has been the subject of controversy for years. Harvard University made headlines in 2014 when it announced that it had used technology to test and found that the book's cover was actually made of human skin.

Harvard’s decision follows a campaign by Paul Needham, a prominent modern book scholar, to remove the book’s cover and repatriate its remains to France for burial in May 2023. The topic resurfaced in mid-March, when Needham’s group sent an open letter to Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s interim president. The letter was also published as an advertisement in The Harvard Crimson, Harvard’s student-run newspaper.

In the letter, Needham's group argued that the Harvard library had treated the book "brutally, as a sensational, attention-grabbing exhibit." This "seems to violate every conceivable notion of the respectful treatment of human beings."

“Choosing to open the book and determine how to treat it respectfully was the right decision,” Paul said after Harvard’s decision.

In fact, the process of processing the book covers and finding a place to bury the remains will take "months, if not longer," according to library officials.

There are more than 20,000 human remains in Harvard's collection, ranging from full skeletons to locks of hair, small bone fragments and teeth, according to a 2022 school report. Of those, about 6,500 are Native American and 19 are African American, believed to be victims of slavery.

Hoang Mi ( According to NYT, USA today )

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