Theft is never a great thing, but there must be a special place in hell for those who steal libraries’ shared cultural treasure
A 13th-century inscription in an early copy of Bede’s commentary on the Gospel of Saint Luke (originally from Reading Abbey and now in the British Library) reads “Quem qui celaverit vel fraudem de eo fecerit anathema sit”, translated as “Anyone who conceals or does damage to it, may he be cursed”. Such curses in manuscripts aimed at those who might dare to steal them from medieval monastic libraries were not uncommon, but the custodians of the library of San Pedro in Barcelona were considerably less circumspect with their maledictions, warning potentially light-fingered readers that: “For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted.”
Whether it is because we regard our own book collections as deeply personal, reflecting elements of our personalities, or because books already provide such extraordinary value for money, book thefts seem to fire our imaginations: see the recent story about the recovery of £2.5m of rare books stolen in a “Mission Impossible-style theft”. But this week’s admission by Cambridge University that two of Charles Darwin’s manuscript notebooks appear to have been stolen raises some interesting moral questions that – as a bookseller – have bothered me for some time.
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