150-Year-Old Kiama Library Book Returned After Fireplace

A book borrowed from an Australian library shortly after it opened in the 1870s has finally been returned, approximately 150 years after it vanished. The volume, an 1858 edition of "The Antiquities of Athens," was discovered during renovations to a house on Manning Street in the seaside town of Kiama, south of Sydney. It had been concealed inside an old tea crate that was bricked into a sealed fireplace.

The finder, 77-year-old Ross Simmons, returned the book to Kiama Library last week, where staff immediately recognized it as part of the library's original collection. The book bears the number 506, placing it among the roughly 1,000 volumes the library held when it first opened in 1872. Library manager Michelle Hudson said the institution had received books decades overdue before, but never anything approaching this age or historical significance.

The exact date the book was borrowed and the identity of the borrower remain a mystery. The library's lending journal from the 1870s, which recorded such details, has been lost. Hudson believes the book likely disappeared within just a few years of the library's opening. Simmons has speculated that his great-great-grandfather, a local...