A 150-year-overdue book resurfaces in a library, found bricked in a fireplace

MELBOURNE, Australia -- An Australian public library has had a book returned an estimated 150 years late and has no way of tracking down the errant borrower, a librarian said on Thursday.The book “Antiquities of Athens,” published in 1858, was returned to the library in the seaside town of Kiama last week by a man who had found it during recent home renovations inside a tea crate bricked into a sealed fireplace, Kiama Library manager Michelle Hudson said.“We’ve never had anything that old come back to us,” Hudson said.“I follow lots of libraries on social media and often you’ll get things that are maybe 30 or 40 years old when they’re cleaning out estates and stuff like that,” she added.The book’s finder did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’s request for comment.The late return fine would be around 28,000 Australian dollars ($19,500), allowing for inflation, Hudson said. That was calculated on the British three pence-a-week overdue fee that was printed on the inside cover of the book, along with a list of rules that applied when the library opened in 1872.But Hudson said there was no way of tracing the final borrower who had accrued the debt. The library journal from...