(no subject)

How's this for a Sunday human interest story?

A bungled burglary in the English city of Leeds led to police discovering a 300-year-old book on the street after it was dumped by the hapless thief. Now, that's hardly a newsworthy story for England. What is newsworthy is what the book was bound in.

Human skin.

Yes, that's right. "Much of the text is in French, and it was not uncommon around the time of the French Revolution for books to be covered in human skin," said the press. How I've never heard of this macabre practice, I don't know, but look at this-- more than you ever wanted to know:

The practice, known as anthropodermic bibliopegy, was sometimes used in the 18th and 19th centuries when accounts of murder trials were bound in the killer's skin…

Pictures!

The book in question.

I swear to God... this is why history's so interesting. It teaches you that no matter how fecked up you think the world is, something crazier has gone before. Well, usually. :|