Well, I still wouldn't rule out misplacing...
Charles Darwin: Notebooks worth millions lost for 20 years: The notebooks were last seen in November 2000 after "an internal request" to remove them from a special manuscripts storeroom to be photographed. They were taken to a temporary studio, which at the time was in a temporary building in the grounds of the university library because building work was taking place. It was only during "a routine check" two months later that it was discovered they were missing.
In my experience, I wouldn't go so far as to say 'it's not uncommon', but I would say it's not unknown in repositories which hold books, manuscripts and archives for items to go astray, and to turn up eventually not as the result of a determined and focussed search in the probable places they might be but completely by chance, in places where you never thought they'd be.
And most of those long AWOL items were not things that had been out for normal reader circulation but out to other departments for conservation or reprography.
The thing with the Darwin notebooks is that you couldn't exactly sell them at Sothebys or other reputable dealers, you'd need access to some kind of underhand black market operation, which I'm sure there are. I'm not sure that there's anywhere that's known for buying up Darwin-related manuscript material, no questions asked, nudge-wink, in the way that Hobby Lobby has become notorious for buying hinky and even forged papyri. But presumably there are private collectors...
This entry was originally posted at https://oursin.dreamwidth.org/3163724.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
comments.