An overdue copy of Rebecca returned to library after 51 years!
Mattie Richardson with the long-lost copy of Rebecca at Enderlin Municipal Library, North Dakota
A fun news item has attracted our attention this week.
The story begins in late September 1973 at the library in Enderlin, North Dakota, when someone checked out a copy of Daphne du Maurier’s most famous novel, Rebecca. The date the book needed to be returned was 6th October 1973.
Fast forward fifty-one years to 10th March 2025, when Mattie Richardson, director of the Enderlin Municipal Library, received a package that arrived in the mail. Imagine her surprise when she opened the parcel to find it had been sent anonymously and contained an old copy of Rebecca and a $20 bill. The parcel came from Arizona, but there was no return address.
When Mattie opened the book, she realised it had been checked out of the library in 1973 and never returned. Because it was so long ago, there was no way of tracing who had borrowed the book. Originally the library had been located in the basement of the City Auditorium Building, which used to be the City Hall. At some point, the whole basement had flooded, and it seems likely that records were lost then because Mattie does not know where any records dating back to 1973 are.
Mattie thinks that the most likely scenario explaining this extraordinary tale is that someone was clearing out their parents’ home and found the book, saw it was from Enderlin Library and decided to send it back.
The $20 bill must have been a contribution towards the fine that the book would have incurred during the time it was missing. By a complete coincidence, the library has decided to stop charging people fines for late returns and now only charge for replacements, so, despite its fifty-one-year absence, there was no fine owing. If fines had still been in place over that length of time, the book would have incurred fees of $1,878.30, so the $20 bill would not have cut it! However, the library now actually owes the anonymous sender the $20!
March 2025.