*THIS ITEM CONTAINS A BOOK PLATE SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR*
On bookshelves around the world, surrounded by ordinary books bound in paper
and leather, rest other volumes of a distinctly strange and grisly sort: those
bound in human skin. Would you know one if you held it in your hand?
In Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom seeks out the historic and scientific
truths behind anthropodermic bibliopegy, the practice of binding books in
this most intimate covering. Dozens of such books live on in the world's most
famous libraries and museums. Dark Archives exhumes their origins and brings to
life the doctors, murderers, innocents, and indigents whose lives are sewn
together in this disquieting collection. Along the way, Rosenbloom tells the
story of how her team of scientists, curators, and librarians test rumored
anthropodermic books, untangling the myths around their creation and reckoning
with the ethics of their custodianship.
A librarian and journalist, Rosenbloom is a member of The Order of the Good
Death and a cofounder of their Death Salon, a community that encourages
conversations, scholarship, and art about mortality and mourning. In Dark
Archives–captivating and macabre in all the right ways–she has crafted a
narrative that is equal parts detective work, academic intrigue, history, and
medical curiosity: a book as rare and thrilling as its subject.
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