Book bricked in a fireplace for 150 years returns to Australian library, late fee would’ve been nearly $20,000

Book Bricked in Fireplace Returns After 150 Years

Theindiapostdaily.com – A book bricked in a fireplace for 150 years has finally made its way back to an Australian public library, according to a report by news agency AP. The volume, which vanished from the Kiama library roughly 150 years ago, was discovered during a recent home renovation and arrived encrusted with water damage from decades of confinement. Local resident Ross Simmons returned the book to the library, where manager Michelle Hudson described the homecoming as unlike anything she had encountered in her career.

The Discovery and the Borrower

The book, titled “Antiquities of Athens” and first published in 1858, was found tucked inside a tea crate sealed within a fireplace at Simmons’ home. Simmons believes the book bricked in a fireplace was originally borrowed by his great-great-grandfather, John Simmons, who once lived in the very house where the book was later found hidden away. “I’m making an assumption. He was in residence in the cottage around about that time and his children were probably too young,” Simmons said.

Ms Hudson noted that while libraries occasionally receive decades-old returns when people clear out deceased relatives’ estates, nothing had come close to this in terms of age. “We’ve never had anything that old come back to us,” she was quoted as saying on Thursday.

A Staggering Late Fee

The Kiama library first opened its doors in 1872, and the recovered book had been catalogued as No. 506 in the library’s original collection, which comprised close to 1,000 titles at the time. Ms Hudson believes the book likely disappeared from the collection within just a few years of the library’s opening.

Using the original late-fee structure printed inside the book’s cover — a British three pence per week overdue charge — Ms Hudson calculated that, adjusted for inflation, the fine for such a lengthy delay would amount to roughly 28,000 Australian dollars, or close to $19,500.

However, she clarified that the library has no intention of pursuing any such payment. Despite the eye-watering hypothetical fine, the identity of the original borrower may never be known. Ms Hudson explained that the library’s records from the 1870s documenting who had borrowed which books have long since been lost. “Unfortunately, we have a missing link. There’s nothing in the book that tells us who the last borrower was,” she said.

Interestingly, library regulations from that era required borrowers to return any outstanding book and clear their overdue dues before being permitted to borrow another. Ms Hudson speculated that this rule may explain why the book was never brought back in the first place. “Maybe that’s why they never returned it to us,” she said.

The report also highlighted some of the unusual borrowing rules that governed the library during the 1870s. Households were allowed to borrow up to three books at a time, but only if at least six members of that household were confirmed to be able to read — a stipulation that has no equivalent under today’s library norms, which require no such proof of literacy. Another rule from the period barred library staff from lending books to individuals who showed up at the library in a “state of intoxication.”

Simmons said he had no clear explanation for why his ancestor, an English immigrant who had also served as an alderman in Kiama’s local municipal government, never returned the borrowed book. The 77-year-old added that he was not particularly worried about facing any consequences over the matter, joking about his own experience dealing with difficult customers over the years and his readiness to stand his ground if confronted.

Going forward, the century-and-a-half-old book will not return to general circulation. Instead, it is set to be preserved as part of the library’s local history collection. “We’re not going to allow it to go back out again. We don’t want to wait another 150 years for this book to be returned,” Ms Hudson said.