Over-100-Year-Old Book Finally Returned to St. Paul Library

(KNSI) – A Twin Cities family is thankful this week that the St. Paul Public Library no longer charges late fees.

A patron was sorting through their mother’s belongings when they came across “Famous Composers, Volume II” by Nathan Haskell Dole. They dropped it off in St. Louis Park, and the book wound its way through the interlibrary loan process back to St. Paul. It is believed that the book was last checked out in 1919.

It is at least the third life for the edition, which was checked out at the time of a terrible fire in 1915 that destroyed most of the library’s then 160,000-book collection. It survived only to be lost for over a century.

Officials say they don’t expect to put the book back into circulation. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, no record of “Famous Composers, Volume I” is left in the library’s system.

Nathan Haskell Dole was a famous editor, working for the likes of the Philadelphia Press with a focus on art, literature, and music. He moved to Boston, where he became a giant in the city’s social scene. He personally knew Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Walt Whitman, and many others.

Famous Composers is still regarded as a culturally important work by scholars.

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