The book sat on John Hanson’s bookshelf for decades, first in his Boscawen home and then in Barrington.
Its faded brown cover, held by tape to the spine, was such a familiar sight that he hardly even noticed the volume’s presence.
It bore markings from the Concord Public Library along with the words “may be kept for one week.” But the book did not return home for 48,220 days, or over 132 years, since being checked out. It would have amassed an overdue fine of $12,055, although the library wouldn’t have charged him.
“I have no idea where I got it,” he said. “I’ve had it for years and years. My father was born and grew up in Concord, but he didn’t have a library card. I don’t know about my grandparents. I don’t know if it was something that I found at an ad sale or in a pile of books or what.”
The volume itself is an issue of “The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine” from September of 1894.
Earlier this month, Hanson noticed a Monitor article at the grocery store announcing the library’s year-long fine freeze.”
“I saw that they were taking in books with no fine, and I said, ‘Boy, this is a good time to bring it in,'” he said.
It had occurred to him over the years to maybe return it, but given how long the book had been in his possession, venturing to the library wasn’t a real priority.
Jennifer Needham was sitting at the circulation desk when Hanson arrived at the library. As the archivist and outreach coordinator, she could hardly believe it when he said he probably had the library’s longest overdue material.
“I was like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be from like the 80s or 90s,'” she said. “And he pulls it out, and I’m like, ‘No!'”
First she checked to make sure it wasn’t something that had been deaccessioned from the collection. The Concord Public Library bookplate, issue number and date confirmed that the 1894 magazine had, indeed, never been returned.
“I am just so curious. Like someone obviously checked this out, and why didn’t they bring it back, or did they lose it and then they were ashamed and were afraid to bring it back?” she said.
The mystery has occupied Hanson’s mind too.
Like his father, he was born and raised in the state capital. He graduated from Concord High School in 1960 and made a career in the power equipment business. After over four decades in Boscawen, he moved to Barrington in 2010.
Reading has been a mainstay of his life, from his early years spent browsing the children’s section of the Concord Public Library until now.
“I usually have three books or so going at once,” he said. “When I was in school, I could remember the page number on each one, and I never used a bookmark. But I can’t do that anymore.”
Around an inch thick, the bound magazine contained a surprise.
“I read quite a bit of it,” Hanson said. “And it’s odd because some of it had been colored with Crayon, as if a kid had it at one time or another.”
The library, which shared about Hanson’s returned item on social media on Wednesday, said it won’t put the magazine back into circulation but hopes to display it in the Concord Room, where Concord-related archival material lives.
“This is a special thing,” Needham said.
