In 1828, thousands gathered in Bury St Edmunds to watch William Corder hang for the murder of Maria Marten, his lover, in a crime so infamous it became known as the Red Barn Murder. His punishment did not end at the gallows. After his execution, surgeons dissected his body — and bound a book about his trial in his skin. Talk about a dark read.
Now, nearly two centuries later, a second such book has emerged.
Tucked away on an office bookshelf at Moyse’s Hall Museum in Suffolk, England, the long-forgotten volume was recently rediscovered during a catalog review. Unlike the first known copy — fully clad in Corder’s skin — this one bears only patches on its spine and corners. Both books are now on display, offering a macabre window into 19th-century justice and the practice of anthropodermic bibliopegy: binding books in human skin.
A Killer, A Corpse, A Curious Practice
Corder’s execution for the killing of his lover was swift and spectacular. Thousands gathered to watch the hanging. His body, like those of many condemned men under England’s so-called Bloody Code, was dissected publicly. Then, part of his skin was used to bind copies of a book documenting his trial.
One of these books — titled An Authentic and Faithful History of the Mysterious Murder of Maria Marten — has been on display at the museum since 1933. It is bound entirely in human skin.
But last year, during a routine review of the museum’s catalogue, staff made an unexpected discovery.
“We get things called museum losses,” Dan Clarke, heritage officer at West Suffolk Council, told The BBC. “This would be considered a museum loss which has been found.”
The second copy, donated decades ago by a family tied to the surgeon who dissected Corder, had been hiding in plain sight — on a shelf in the museum’s office. Unlike its more complete counterpart, the rediscovered volume only uses skin on the corners and spine.
Museum assistant Abbie Smith handled both books on her first day in the job. “If you did not tell people it was bound in human skin, I do not really think you would realise,” she said. “It is also rather humbling to have something like that in the collection.”
The Ultimate True Crime Book
For some, the books are eerie relics of the past. For others, they are “sickening artefacts.”
“I know you’re not supposed to burn books,” Terry Deary, creator of the wildly popular Horrible Histories series, told The BBC, “but quite honestly these are such sickening artefacts. These are two books I’d like to burn.”
Deary, who once portrayed Corder in a stage production, sees the books as a “particularly sick” form of posthumous punishment. “I feel guilty because I have played Corder,” he told The Guardian. “I’ve got photographs of me threatening poor Maria Marten with a gun.”
Corder’s conviction, he argues, was built on circumstantial evidence and bolstered by public hysteria. In his upcoming novel Actually, I’m a Corpse, Deary attempts to rehabilitate Corder’s reputation. “The poor man’s been maligned,” he said.
Others, like Clarke, see the artefacts as entry points into difficult conversations. The books now sit beside a late 18th-century gibbet cage—a steel framework once used to display executed corpses. For Clarke, the display is not some morbid spectacle, but a way to confront the violent and performative nature of historical justice.
“Uncomfortable history, yes, but if we are to learn from history we must first face it with honesty and openness,” Clarke said.
Across the Atlantic, institutions are taking different approaches. Last year, Harvard University removed a skin binding from the 19th-century French book Des destinées de l’âme after determining it came from a female hospital patient. The decision was made, the university said, “due to the ethically fraught nature of the book’s origins and subsequent history.”
But Moyse’s Hall has no plans to follow suit. “We see human remains in every museum across the country,” Clarke said. “We haven’t had a single complaint about the book in 92 years. But we have had complaints about mummified cats.”
A Story That Refuses to Die
The Red Barn Murder has been retold in countless forms — folk songs, plays, pulp novels, and even a performance by Florence Pugh in the BBC’s The Little Drummer Girl. Over nearly 200 years, the facts have grown blurry.
Corder, a farmer, was said to have lured Maria Marten to the Red Barn in Polstead under the pretense of eloping to Ipswich. He shot her and buried her body in the barn. It was Marten’s stepmother who — after reportedly having disturbing dreams — led authorities to the remains. Corder was found in London, arrested, and tried in Bury St Edmunds. He was convicted, hanged, and dissected — a fate reserved for the worst criminals in Georgian Britain.
The tale endures, as does the debate. Should artefacts made from a person’s body be preserved, or destroyed?
“Do we think all books bound in skin should be on display?” Clarke asked. “That would be debated on a case-by-case basis.”
In this case, the books remain.
Bound in skin. Bound to history.
Both books are now on display at Moyse’s Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK.
