Nearly 90 years after it was originally checked out, a book was recently returned to a suburban New York library, and the shockingly low $5 late fee was all that was charged.
Just before the 90th anniversary of its due date on October 11, 1933, a copy of Joseph Conrad’s 1925 book “Youth and Two Other Stories” was returned to the Larchmont Public Library in Westchester County. According to Larchmont librarian Caroline Cunningham, Virginia resident Joanie Morgan initially contacted the library in July after discovering the book among her stepfather’s possessions and shipped it back at the end of September.
“This was quite a surprise for us, for sure,” she told the New York Post. “At first I thought, are you calling the right library because we actually get a lot of phone calls from Virginia because there’s a Larchmont library in Virginia,” Cunningham said of talking to Morgan.
“Their house was about two blocks from Larchmont Public Library. And since Jimmie, a writer and avid reader himself, no doubt encouraged his boys to read, they most likely borrowed books from Larchmont Public on a regular basis,” the letter reads.
The man who had borrowed the volume, an advertising executive named Ellis, died in 1978.
Customers in Larchmont are charged 20 cents every day a book is overdue, up to a maximum fee of $5, the library stated in a Facebook post. “When a library book has not been returned after 30 days, it is considered ‘lost’ and the patron is billed for the initial price of the book,” the post reads. “However, when the book is returned, it reverts back to the maximum fine which is five dollars.”
Although the $5 late charge was not concealed within the book’s pages, library officials weren’t very concerned because the book had been absent from Larchmont’s collection for years. “That copy’s going to stay out of circulation,” said Cunningham. “And will probably have it just to keep because it’s a funny story.”
