The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 50, December 9, 2007, Article 19

ON ANTHROPODERMIC BIBLIOPEGY

Bill Malkmus writes: "Your comments on 'anthropodermic
bibliopegy' reminded me of a short contribution I had
published in The Asylum some five years ago (Vol. XX, No. 3,
pp. 59-61), entitled 'Bibliomania through the Ages: Four
Mini-Reviews.' In a three-page commentary (on four books),
there was little opportunity for lengthy discourse, but a
two-paragraph excerpt (from p. 60) might be relevant here:

 [Holbrook] Jackson, in The Anatomy of Bibliomania [1930;
 repr. 1950], tells us everything we wanted to know, and
 considerably more, about the nature of the disease,
 seeming to have overlooked no possible topic for discussion.
 The book is divided into 32 parts which are further
 subdivided into 199 sections. Among these subject headings
 one may find quite practical ones such as "Reading at the
 Toilet" and "Reading Many Books at Once" and the saddest
 -- "On Parting With Books" -- as well as esoterica such
 "Books Bound in Human Skin."

 This latter section is perhaps not as gruesome as it
 might sound. Camille Flammarion, the French astronomer,
 received a bequest of the tanned skin from the back and
 shoulders of a countess whose skin he had once complimented;
 he used a portion to bind one of his books, Ciel et Terre.
 But at least one donor was able to enjoy his contribution
 in his lifetime: a Russian poet, who had a book of sonnets
 bound in his own skin, taken from a leg which was amputated
 following a hunting accident. [1]

 [ Footnote 1]: For the do-it-yourselfers in our readership,
 optimal tanning instructions are provided.

"In regard to your opening question, I do not have the book
on hand to double-check, but I am sure that if there had been
any (even vaguely) numismatic references, I would have made
the most of it.

"Your concept of developing an archive from The E-Sylum fits
in nicely with your being able to write more extensively and
provide references which I was unable to do in the print medium.
Perhaps a reference to the Jackson book and section would expand
the archive references usefully. Unfortunately, the subject
index in The Asylum did not include a category "Books bound
in human skin," so that even a computer search of the index
would not have turned up this reference.

"I never fail to find The E-Sylum interesting."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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