In a very interesting article by Dan Alban from The Record, he talks about books bound in human skin. What? No, I kid you not! Geesh. There’s even a name for this unusual practice: anthropodermic bibliopegy.

According to Alban, many older libraries have such tomes in their collection, hundreds in fact (ack, think of all those skinless corpses!). The College of Physicians of Philadelphia has four such books, including one with a visible tattoo (now, that is so cool *g*). Harvard too has several, together with a rare book with an inscription that reads: “The bynding of this booke is all that remains of my deare friende Jonas Wright, who was flayed alive by the Wavuma on the Fourth Day of August, 1632...” Ye gods, ouch!

Alban also states that book binding in human skin was once considered *gasp* romantic by the upper class! (Er, does all that aristocratic blood really fucks up the brain?) It seems that a certain love-struck countess bestowed her skin for the bindings of French astronomer Camille Flammarion’s Terres du Ciel. *gag*

I mean, really, why couldn’t she just considered a simpler, more pleasurable, and definitely an undefiled way of showing her lurve? (Unlike our countess, I refuse to be an ugly corpse. Uh-huh. When I die, I still want to look pretty!) Maybe, she could have given him a mind-bursting (no pun intended) blowjob? Or, since she seems like the type who preferred morbidity, perhaps some hardcore S&M? Oooh, she could be Countess Dominatrix and he could be The Dirrrty Astronomer! *sigh* They could have enjoyed some really wild monkey sex; just think of what it could have been...

Oh, love... you really give fucking a bad name.