Overdue By More Than 120 Years, A Library Book Finally Finds Its Way Home

"Finally, after more than 120 years, Paul Smith has recovered something he never knew was missing in the first place."

"The headmaster at Hereford Cathedral School, near the boundary between Wales and England, had been looking at his mail earlier this month when he noticed a package wrapped in brown paper addressed to him. Smith guessed immediately that the package contained a thick book — but it wasn't until he read the note that came with it that he realized just how long that very book had been around."

"The note, sent by Alice Gillett, opened with an apology:

"I am sorry to inform you that one of your former pupils, Professor A.E. Boycott FRS [Fellow of the Royal Society], appears to have stolen the enclosed — I can't imagine how the school has managed without it!"

Seems like an open-and-shut case, to be sure — except that the professor in question had attended the school from 1886 to 1894. Gillett is his 77-year-old granddaughter. She says she found the book while sorting through her collection after her husband's death earlier this year."