Missing Darwin notebooks a 20-year mystery
Artifacts have ‘probably been stolen’
In November 2000, two notebooks belonging to renowned naturalist Charles Darwin were taken off the shelves of a storage room in Cambridge University Library, to be photographed in a studio on campus.
That was the last time the books were seen in public, the university librarian told the BBC on Tuesday, after a “routine checkup” conducted two months ago found the books were never reshelved.
Library curators conducted an “extensive search” to locate the missing notebooks, worth millions of dollars, and have now concluded the books might have been stolen.
“We know they were photographed in November,” Dr. Jessica Gardner told the BBC. “But we do not know what happened between then and the time in January 2001, when it was determined they were not in their proper place on the shelves.”
One of them contains the 19th century scientist’s iconic Tree of Life sketch, which explores the evolutionary relationship between different species.
It’s a heartbreaking discovery, Gardner said, made more difficult by the fact that “there isn’t anything on the remaining record which tells us anything more.”
Librarians conducted searches for the books over the years, all of which drew a blank. But staff initially assumed that the books had simply been misfiled and would turn up sooner or later, Gardner said.
While it is mystifying that the books could have gone missing for two decades, it is not entirely surprising. The Cambridge University Library is massive — it measures more than 200 kilometres’ worth of shelving and houses in excess of 10- million maps, manuscripts and other objects.
The notebooks in turn, are small, no bigger than a postcard. They had been stored in a blue box, matching the size of a paperback.
Gardner assumed the post of director of library services in 2017 and this year launched a new search.
Specialist staff went through specific zones of the library’s storage facilities and conducted “fingertip” checks within the 189 boxes of Darwin’s books, drawings and letters, to no avail.
Unlike her predecessors, Gardner said she was “not willing to accept” that the notebooks would just turn up and opted for a new approach. She and her team, she said, took a step back from earlier assumption that the books had been misshelved and instead “completely reviewed what happened at the time.”
“Reluctantly, I have decided that was not the right conclusion.”
Instead, Gardner now believes that the notebooks have “probably been stolen.”
Theft, she ruefully admits, “should be ruled in as a possibility from the start and that wasn’t.”
Over the past 20 years, security procedures have been revised, reviewed and tightened.
“Now if anything of this scale and significance was not found, we would be going to the police,” she said.
The university has notified the Cambridgeshire Police, who have recorded the disappearance of the notebooks on the National Art Loss Register for missing cultural artifacts, as well as Interpol’s database of stolen artworks.
Chances are slim, but the notebooks still could be found within the library.
“We won’t stop looking,” Gardner said, adding that it will take another five years to complete a full search of all the remaining shelves and storage rooms.
The library has also put out a call to the public for help.
“There are good examples where things have been found, thanks to the help of the public,” said Gardner.
“So I would really appeal to members of the public, former staff, researchers, anyone who might have information which would shed light.
If anything, now is the time to “safely, even anonymously” get in touch, she told the BBC.
“It’s possible they are under a bed, that’s the bestcase scenario, someone has found they can’t sell them or they’re just holding on to them,” she said.
“It’s those new leads we’re looking for, with the help of the police, in order to help recover these for the nation.”