Overdue library magazine returned after 132 years

A Concord Public Library fine freeze running through September 2027 prompted a surprising return: a man named John Hanson walked in with a magazine that had been missing since September 1894, about 132 years. Archivist Jennifer Needham identified it as an issue of The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, bearing the library’s book plate and an inscription that allowed circulation for one week. Hanson did not know who originally borrowed it. Needham calculated that, at a historical rate of 25 cents a day, the overdue charge would have amounted to more than $12,000. She called the return a pleasant surprise and a piece of local library history.

The magazine itself is over 200 pages with a marbled hard cover, filled with essays, poems, illustrations and period advertisements for tobacco, chewing gum and a porcelain-lined bathtub. Its condition is unusually good for its age except for one notable loss: an illustration of Abraham Lincoln has been cut out. The issue will not be returned to circulation but will be prepared for display at the library once public attention subsides. Needham’s takeaway: patrons should simply return long-lost items and not be afraid to bring them back to libraries or to librarians.