Recently Rediscovered Book Bound in Human Skin Goes on Display in England Curators think the volume’s corners and spine are bound in the skin of William Corder, an infamous criminal who was convicted of murder in the late 1820s A book bound in Corder's skin has been in the museum's collections since the 1930s. The second copy was given to the museum several decades ago. Moyse's Hall Museum A rediscovered copy of a book bound in human skin is going on display at a museum in England, reports BBC News’ Laura Foster. Curators were reviewing the collection records for Moyse’s Hall Museum recently when a listing caught their eye: a volume supposedly bound in the skin of William Corder, an infamous criminal who had been convicted of murder in the late 1820s. After searching for it in the museum’s storage area and coming up empty, they eventually found the tome on a bookshelf in an office. It was squeezed between books with traditional bindings. The museum has housed another copy of this book since the 1930s. But curators hadn’t been aware of the second copy, which entered the museum’s collections about two decades ago, according to the Guardian’s Ella Creamer. Now, the two texts are on display together.Many in the United Kingdom are familiar with Corder’s name because of a crime that’s been dubbed the “Red Barn Murder.” Corder was convicted of killing his lover, Maria Marten, at a barn in Polstead, Suffolk, in 1827. The following year, he was executed in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, in front of a crowd of thousands of onlookers. Afterwards, his body was dissected. A surgeon named George Creed then took a book about the trial by journalist Jay Curtis and bound it in some of Corder’s skin; the book went on display at the Moyse’s Hall Museum in Bury St. Edmunds in 1933. Creed also apparently used Corder’s skin to partially bind another book, but only on the corners and the spine. The second Corder book was donated to the museum more than 20 years ago by a family with ties to Creed. Compared to the original copy, the new copy’s provenance wasn’t as strong. Based on archival correspondence, it appears that the museum’s curators at the time decided against displaying it. Surgeon George Creed used some of Corder's skin to bind a book about the trial. Moyse's Hall Museum But recent visual comparisons of the two books’ bindings suggest “they are one and the same,” according to a social media post from the museum. Creed may have taken leftover pieces from the first binding and used them to decorate the second book as “a gift for a friend,” though the museum acknowledges that this story isn’t confirmed. The practice of binding books with human skin is known as “anthropodermic bibliopegy,” according to the American Bookbinders Museum. The technique dates back to at least the 16th century, but it became more widespread during the 1800s. Museums around the world—including the Smithsonian—are wrestling with how to ethically handle human remains in their collections, such as books bound in human skin. Last year, Harvard University removed a human skin binding from a book that had been in its collection for 90 years because of its “ethically fraught nature.” Librarians placed the binding into temporary storage while they conducted research to determine a respectful final disposition. Meanwhile, in Australia, the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney removed fragments of mummified bodies from public display for similar reasons. The museum is displaying both copies of the book together. Moyse's Hall Museum “For hundreds of years, body parts in museum collections have been treated as objects,” senior curator Melanie Pitkin said in a statement at the time. “We have become so accustomed to seeing them on show that we often forget they once belonged to living people.” Dan Clarke, heritage officer for the West Suffolk Council, which oversees the museum, tells BBC News he has not heard any complaints about the first Corder book being on display. Some people, however, did take issue with the museum displaying mummified cats in a recent exhibition about witchcraft. Curators consider the books to be “window[s] into the past,” rather than “salacious artifact[s],” Clarke tells the Guardian. They’re positioned next to other objects that provide context, such as an 18th-century cage that was used to hold criminals’ corpses.  Curators have added a trigger warning to this section of the museum so that “people can decide whether they want to skip that gallery and go on to the next,” Clarke tells Smithsonian magazine. “It is important that we display such remains for educational and scientific purposes,” he says. He adds that the best place for these artifacts to be studied is “within a controllable environment where people are there by their own volition—and that’s a museum following the ethical code.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.