On Wednesday, Harvard confirmed that one of the books which has been sitting on its Houghton Library since the 1930s, does indeed sport a cover made up of human skin, reports state.

According to Harvard curators, the book titled Des destinées de l'ame (Destinies of The Soul) was published sometime in the 1880s. Tests on the cover of the book confirmed with 99.9 percent confidence that it is human flesh.

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Experts state that binding books in human skin wasn't that uncommon back in the day and the practice dates back as far as the 15^th century.

The formal terminology is anthropodermic bibliopegy and one of the reasons why people would do so is in order to immortalize the dead.

The donor of the book left a note inside detailing that he had the work bound in human skin, more specifically, skin from the back of a female mental patient who died from a stroke and whose body was left unclaimed.

The note, translated from its original French, runs as follows:

"This book is bound in human skin parchment on which no ornament has been stamped to preserve its elegance. By looking carefully you easily distinguish the pores of the skin. A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering: I had kept this piece of human skin taken from the back of a woman. It is interesting to see the different aspects that change this skin according to the method of preparation to which it is subjected. Compare for example with the small volume I have in my library, Sever. Pinaeu's de Virginitatis notis which is also bound in human skin but tanned with sumac."

The second work the donor mentioned in the letter, Pinaeu's de Virginitatis notis, currently sits in the Wellcome Library in London.

Harvard claimed to already have knowledge about the origin of the book's binding, but is only now confirming it to be human skin. 

Tagsbook, human, bound, Harvard, female, anthropodermic bibliopegy, Destinies of The Soul, Des destinées de l'ame, flesh, Houghton library, human skin