In Today's Society, Are You Master of Your Own Skin? Having found a publisher's proof copy of The Yankee Way to Simplify Your Life, which principles I'm trying to apply to my own life (up to a point), there is a reference to spanking children with books bound by the flayed flesh of criminals. Not popular today. But looking into it, I was led to the Boston Athenium for the story of the referenced highwayman who claimed to be "master of his own skin," thence on his way to become the book binding on his confession... But it turns out that not only criminals observed the practice. The Athenium link also notes that a famous beautiful lady had her skin put up on a treatise of astronomy. More on such practices here.