An atlas borrowed from the Old Library in 1936 - and never brought back - has been returned by the borrower's granddaughter.
The Atlas of the Western Shires, printed in 1780 with forty hand-coloured plates, was signed out by a geography student in the spring of 1936. The library ledger records the loan, and then nothing more.
Last month a parcel arrived at the porters' lodge with a short letter. "My grandfather always meant to bring this back," it read. "He said it was the most beautiful thing he ever held."
The Librarian has waived the fine, which by the college's 1936 tariff would have come to a little over eleven thousand pounds. The atlas is on display in the Old Library until December.
