Extremely overdue book returned to Massachusetts library 119 years later
A Massachusetts library is celebrating the return of a book more than a century after it was last checked out
BOSTON (AP) — On Feb. 14, 1904, someone curious about the emerging possibilities of a key force of nature checked out James Clerk Maxwell's “An Elementary Treatise on Electricity” from the New Bedford Free Public Library.
It would take 119 years and the sharp eyes of a librarian in West Virginia before the scientific text finally found its way back to the Massachusetts library.
The discovery occurred when Stewart Plein, the curator of rare books at West Virginia University Libraries, was sorting through a recent donation of books.
Plein found the treatise and noticed it had been part of the collection at the New Bedford library and, critically, had not been stamped “Withdrawn," indicating that while extremely overdue, the book had not been discarded.
