Trevor Laffan: I’ve heard of covering books in wallpaper... not human skin!

I can remember as a child in primary school, my mother always covered my schoolbooks at the beginning of the school year.

As soon as she collected the new books, she would cover them in brown paper or wallpaper or whatever she had at her disposal.

She would write my name very neatly across the front of each book and, in fairness to her, she did a good job.

I suppose she was trying to keep them reasonably clean in the hope they could be passed on to someone else afterwards.

She had nice handwriting and was always doodling. Give her a piece of paper and a pen and she would amuse herself for ages.

Unfortunately for her, I was a doodler too, so it wasn’t long before her expertly covered schoolbooks looked like they had been attacked by a graffiti artist.

You’d think by then she would have given up, but she continued with her covering until I left school. Thankfully, she restricted herself to only using paper, unlike some others who experimented with other materials - like human skin for example.

According to a report by the BBC, a book owned by Harvard University library revealed its grisly history, when scientists confirmed that it was bound in human skin.

Staff at the university believe that the book, Des Destinees de l’Ame (Destinies of the Soul), was covered with the skin of an unclaimed female mental patient who died of natural causes.

That sounds pretty disgusting, but apparently, covering books in human skin wasn’t completely unusual in the 19th century. It even had its own name, anthropodermic bibliopegy.

It was a particular subject of interest back then, although it is believed the practice may go back even further.

You’d have to wonder about the mind of the person who came up with that idea in the first place. OK, they didn’t have TV or the internet in those days, but they must have been really hard up for a bit of entertainment if skinning a human to cover a book was the best they could come up with.

They were at it in the UK too.

One of the few surviving examples is owned by the Bristol Record Office and made from the skin of the first man to be hanged at Bristol Gaol. Its embossed dark brown cover was made with the skin of 18-year-old John Horwood, who was hanged for the murder of Eliza Balsum.

The book contains the details of the 1821 crime, when Horwood, who had become infatuated with Balsum, attacked her while she was walking to a well to fetch water. Horwood “took up a large stone and beat her skull to pieces”, and she died from the head injury.

Following his trial and execution, Horwood’s corpse was dissected by a surgeon during a public lecture at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. The surgeon then had part of Horwood’s skin tanned to bind a collection of papers about the case.

The cover of the book was embossed with a skull and crossbones, with the words ‘Cutis Vera Johannis Horwood’, meaning “the actual skin of John Horwood”.

Another book, bound in the skin of William Corder, details his trial for the murder in England of Maria Marten in the so-called Red Barn Murder in Polstead, Suffolk, in 1827. Corder was caught and tried, then hanged in 1828.

His body was dissected and some of the skin was used to bind the book, which tells the story of the trial.

The Killing Of Maria Marten, written by Stephanie Almazan, tells the tale of how, in 1827, young Maria slipped into a barn to meet her secret lover. It was the last time she would be seen alive.

In 1826, a love affair blossomed between 24-year-old Maria Marten and 22-year-old William Corder. Just one year later, their secret romance ended in slaughter - and became one of the most notorious murder cases in English history.

William Corder, the son of a farmer, had a reputation for being a ladies’ man and troublemaker - he once swindled his father out of his own pigs and helped steal livestock from another farmer.

The comely Marten was no stranger to romance either. She already had two children.

William seemed intent on marrying her. Alas, Maria had a less than favourable reputation in the community, so William suggested they elope. They were to meet at the Red Barn, a popular landmark, and then flee to Ipswich.

Maria made her way to the Red Barn as planned. It was the last time she would be seen alive. William claimed she had simply left for Ipswich ahead of him and he made himself scarce, leaving town.

Months later Maria’s father made his way to the barn and, while looking in one of the grain storage bins, he discovered human remains wrapped in a sack.

While the body had decomposed, it was identified as Maria’s and William’s signature green hand-kerchief was wound tightly around the body’s neck.

Police soon tracked him down in London and charged him with murder.

William Corder was found guilty and sentenced to hang, and his body was to be dissected for medical study. In 1828, he was hanged before a large crowd. His body was then taken to Cambridge for an autopsy and some of his skin was removed and now covers the book containing his story.

Covering a book in human skin is a gruesome thought and, thankfully, my mother never went to that extreme.

I wasn’t great at paying attention in school at the best of times, but something like that would have distracted me even more.

I have often read a book that gave me goose-bumps, but I never read a book that got them!