Humor
Overdue Library Book Returned - After 233 Years

Copyright 1997   The Associated Press.
May 9, 1997

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) -- A book about the history of England has been returned to Harvard University -- 233 years after it was checked out.

No one knows where the thick, leather-covered "Complete History of England with the Lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof, Volume 3," has been. It was one of only a few books that survived a fire at the university in 1764, thanks to an unknown borrower who failed to return it.

"It's remarkable that it's come back," said Roger Stoddard, curator of rare books in the Harvard College Library.

The book itself is a relatively undistinguished volume of history that was written by Bishop White Kennett, printed in London in 1706 and given to Harvard by Thomas Bannister, a Boston minister, in 1709.

It was one of about 400 books that escaped a fire in Harvard Hall when the building burned to the ground during the college's winter vacation on January 25, 1764. The rest of the 5,000-volume collection was destroyed.

About 250 books that were being kept in storage were spared. Another 144 were out on loan, including one from the original bequest of John Harvard, after whom the university was named.

That book, "The Christian Warfare Against the Devil World and Flesh," by John Downame, was returned by an undergraduate who was profusely thanked and then expelled for having borrowed it without permission.

About 80 of the 144 missing volumes were eventually returned, but several were thought lost.

The university replaced the "History of England" with a later edition. But when a Harvard history professor was shown an ancient copy by a rare book dealer, he immediately recognized the flyleaf stamp that identified the book in Latin as the property of Harvard University.

The professor, Mark Kishlansky, called the calfskin-covered antique "an exquisite old book."

It was purchased for the university by an anonymous donor for a price officials won't disclose.

Back: Humor Index- Home
Updated 21 May 1997