Posted on 12/08/2023 9:27:01 AM PST by Red Badger
A book was returned to the Carbondale Public Library in Pennsylvania nearly 120 years after it was last checked out. Photo courtesy of the Carbondale Public Library/Facebook
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Dec. 6 (UPI) -- A Pennsylvania library said a book returned to the facility after being spotted at a book sale was nearly 120 years overdue.
The Carbondale Public Library said in a Facebook post that the book, The Cruise of the Esmeralda by Harry Collingwood, was returned by personnel from the Hawley Library, who spotted the tome at a book sale.
The book still bears a pocket inside the cover listing the library's rules and contains a library card issued to Horace Short in 1904.
The library said the book was checked out for 43,641 days, which would have accrued a fine of $872.82 at the 1904 rate of 2 cents per day, or $10,910.25 at the current rate of 25 cents per day.
"Mr. Short is very lucky we currently cap fines for books at $10," the library said in a comment under the post.
And the library will promptly discard the book for being racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic not to mention misogynistic...sarc
I submit that Mr Short is well beyond luck if he received his library card in 1904. An ill considered quip.
For just $10 the library probably won't try to locate any descendants and try to get them to pay.
Got Al Bundy beat....
I went to the library to let them know and they told me I could either bring them another copy (i.e. buy one at a bookstore) or pay the price that was printed on the jacket sleeve, which was $17.95. I guess they take note of these things for their files.
Anyway, I elected to pay them the $17.95.
When I packed again for my next trip, guess what? The book I thought I left in the hotel was in a compartment of my luggage that I did not check when I was unpacking.
So now I have a library book that I own legally, I guess. But if I ever die, one of my children will probably think it belongs to the libary and will bring it back to them.
I hope they don't get hit with a bunch of fees when that happens. I wonder if I should update my will to reflect that that library book has already been paid for.
I guess people don’t realize that the book’s records were removed from the library probably 110 years ago?
Assuming the library even wanted the book back at this point
The book is available online from Gutenberg...but I doubt Mr. Short had access to that. The author wrote adventure novels for boys so Harry may have just been a boy when he checked out the book. I don’t know about this particular book but one of the author’s other novels apparently uses the N-word...so he must be banned for racism.
This is a splendid book, beautifully written, with a strong nautical background. The hero's family, which had a very long nautical tradition, was a bit short of money. But there was a story told in the family that some centuries before an ancestor of his had found an abandoned vessel which turned out to have a huge amount of gold and jewels. He had buried this in a secret location on an island in the Far East, putting directions for finding it in cipher somewhere in his house in England. Our hero finds the paper with the cipher after a long search in the house, and sets off to find the fortune, though he had not yet deciphered the instructions.
All sorts of adventures occur, including being attacked by pirates, whom they get rid of in a most novel manner. Eventually our hero seems to work out how to read the cipher, in a dream, but when he awakes he can't remember how to do it. He does of course remember, and the cipher turns out to be easy to read, once you realise how many digits you need to get each character. They get there, and sure enough, find the treasure. But of course the troubles don't end there, because some of the seamen think it would be a good idea to kill our hero, and take the treasure for themselves. That situation gets sorted out, and after further adventures they get home. They use a novel method of getting the treasure ashore without anybody in authority noticing.
Harry Collingwood (1851-1922). Pseudonym of William Joseph Cosens Lancaster, a civil engineer who specialised in seas and harbours.
You don’t know if they actually bought another copy of the book. You could try returning the book and asking for your $17.95 back. But they probably have a policy against that.
Looks like Mr Collingwood wrote 34 published book in his time.
I wouldn’t want to be Horace.
Just write that inside the cover and it will be fine...................
Sounds like it would make a great movie...............They could call it, “Pirates of the East Indies”......................
“Sully” Sullenberger left a library book behind on the plane he had to crash-land in the Hudson River. He was a hero for saving lives. He tried to reimburse the library for the book but they wouldn’t take his money.
I was waiting for that!.........................😜🤦♂️
Mr. Short is dead. He’s not paying even if they want him to.
Also, do we know when he died? If he checked it out when he was a boy, maybe he was struck and killed by a horseless carriage soon after.
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