Talk:List of books bound in human skin

Possible addition to this list
Pinging I don't want to call you the resident human skin book expert, but...In any case, I am sadly personally familiar with a case of anthropodermic bibliopegy that was relatively high-profile in my hometown and grad school. The Iliff School of Theology in Denver possessed a book, a Latin-language history of Christianity entitled Institutionum Historiae Christianae Compendium, that was previously bound in the skin of an American Indian. The skin, likely that of a Lenape (Delaware) man murdered by a white man under the pretense of trespassing, was removed and buried after student and outside pressure in 1974, with the event suppressed by confidentiality agreements. George Tinker, a professor at Iliff, has been a leading voice in exposing this ugly incident. I have some fairly reliable sources that covered this specific book (which I plan to write an article about); I'll list them below. Do you think it merits inclusion on this FL?
 * [Webpage for Iliff's 2019 conference on the book.]
 * [Webpage for Iliff's 2019 conference on the book.]

Usually, I'd have no issue plugging in an entry like this per BOLD, but I am not well-read on this topic outside of this single instance and don't wanna fudge around on a brand-spanking-new FL. Thank you, and please ping me in your first reply! ~ Pbritti (talk) 20:58, 5 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Haven't seen this case before, -- thanks for bringing it to my attention! It seems fine to me to list that under Suspected -- if I'm reading the sources right, the cover was repatriated well before it could formally be tested? (Intuitively, this case clusters strongly with confirmed-fakes, but that's OR. It might make it difficult to write a standalone article about, though -- if all the sources assume it's definitely legitimate, then an article would have inherent sourcing issues.) Vaticidalprophet 02:22, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm going to contact Iliff this Monday (or, if work proves too heavy, Tuesday) and see if they have published anything that utilized scientific methodology to confirm the composition of the cover. Reliable sources exclusively describe it as human skin. However, the only published academic material on the book is that of Tinker. Unfortunately, Tinker's writing is—by Wikipedia's standards—not reliable. I will search for additional information where I can, but I would like to see this specific book mentioned wherever you think it is appropriate. Maybe we can circle back when I can bring some perhaps non-digitized sources to bear? ~ Pbritti (talk) 02:55, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Appropriate use of the word ‘fraudulent.’
Throughout this article, each reference of claims involving the race of the person whose skin was used to bind a book was concluded to have been “fraudulent.” This word suggests that the person making the claim did so while having knowledge that it was false, but submitted the claim regardless of that fact.

It would be more appropriate and less biased to use the word ‘unsubstantiated’ as this removes the general assumption of the claimant as having malicious intent, and allows for the possibility that the they had a reasonable suspicion until testing could provide definitive evidence. Asase Akua Asum (talk) 07:58, 29 March 2024 (UTC)