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Mysterious benefactor returns Charles Darwin’s missing notebooks after 20 years

arstechnica.com

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Re: Mysterious benefactor returns Charles Darwin’s missing notebooks after 20 years

#21

Post by jimnotgym »

blamazon wrote: post #4
fsckboy wrote: post #2

we're calling the person who returned stolen notebooks a "benefactor"?

What else should we call them? All we know right now is that someone returned them. We don't know if that's the same person who stole them. Personally I am hoping for someone to come forth with a story. At that point we can re-evaluate the use of "benefactor."

> We don't know if that's the same person who stole them.

...or even that they were stolen. They could have been taken out legitimately and the paperwork was messed up in some way. The person who borrowed them may have died.

Re: Mysterious benefactor returns Charles Darwin’s missing notebooks after 20 years

#22

Post by ggm »

My mums incomplete thesis in the 70s required access to some letters and she had manuscript hand written notes from John Ruskin amongst others (iron and gall ink destroys paper. The words etch out black rimmed ghosts).

We returned them to the library after she died in the 90s. This happens without any conscious effort if you file by the volcano method and she had at least two part-time jobs on the go to her dying days, filled with academic paperwork. She had two studies overflowing with books, slides, notes, pictures. You literally had to climb over the piles.

The miracle was finding the letters frankly. They could easily have been mistaken for ephemera and destroyed.

Re: Mysterious benefactor returns Charles Darwin’s missing notebooks after 20 years

#23

Post by toast0 »

dylan604 wrote: post #17
batch12 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah true. Though, better than the alternate theory that they were just returned to the wrong shelf I guess..

And there's the true crime, somebody failed to use the Dewey Decimal system!

Library of Congress or death!

Re: Mysterious benefactor returns Charles Darwin’s missing notebooks after 20 years

#25

Post by madaxe_again »

ggm wrote: post #22

My mums incomplete thesis in the 70s required access to some letters and she had manuscript hand written notes from John Ruskin amongst others (iron and gall ink destroys paper. The words etch out black rimmed ghosts). We returned them to the library after she died in the 90s. This happens without any conscious effort if you file by the volcano method and she had at least two part-time jobs on the go to her dying day…

Yeah, my best guess is that this is something similar - past academic or librarian decided to take them home for reasons known only to them, and after their death, their embarrassed children, fortunately realising their importance, anonymously returned them.

I’ve witnessed similar - elderly neighbour had a set of drawings by Wren that he’d sneak out to show you, but was evasive about their provenance. Turns out the old dog had nicked them when he was renovating a local museum in the 60’s. He had his brother return them after he died. Funny thing is, the museum never even knew they’d had them to go missing, so they proudly tooted about their new Wren sketches donated by an anonymous benefactor.

Re: Mysterious benefactor returns Charles Darwin’s missing notebooks after 20 years

#26

Post by yakak »

schoen wrote: post #19
DougMellon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t imagine being the individual that believed they had misplaced them.

I've met someone who, conversely, misplaced a million dollars' worth of original Borges short story manuscripts and thought they had been stolen. (Fortunately, they hadn't been!)

It's a good thing he found them, I would hate for our reality to be a footnote in a lost manuscript.

Re: Mysterious benefactor returns Charles Darwin’s missing notebooks after 20 years

#28

Post by fsckboy »

blamazon wrote: post #4
fsckboy wrote: post #2

we're calling the person who returned stolen notebooks a "benefactor"?

What else should we call them? All we know right now is that someone returned them. We don't know if that's the same person who stole them. Personally I am hoping for someone to come forth with a story. At that point we can re-evaluate the use of "benefactor."

> What else should we call them?

a person who returned stolen items.

Re: Mysterious benefactor returns Charles Darwin’s missing notebooks after 20 years

#29

Post by MawKKe »

madaxe_again wrote: post #25
ggm wrote: post #22

My mums incomplete thesis in the 70s required access to some letters and she had manuscript hand written notes from John Ruskin amongst others (iron and gall ink destroys paper. The words etch out black rimmed ghosts). We returned them to the library after she died in the 90s. This happens without any conscious effort if you file by the volcano method and she had at least two part-time jobs on the go to her dying day…

Yeah, my best guess is that this is something similar - past academic or librarian decided to take them home for reasons known only to them, and after their death, their embarrassed children, fortunately realising their importance, anonymously returned them. I’ve witnessed similar - elderly neighbour had a set of drawings by Wren that he’d sneak out to show you, but was evasive about their provenance. Turns out the o…

From a PR angle "donations by anonymous benefactor" sounds a lot better than "we lost invaluable items and didn't even notice"
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