Charles Darwin’s missing notebooks returned to Cambridge University

After being missing for more than 20 years, two notebooks belonging to Charles Darwin mysteriously reappeared several weeks ago at the Cambridge University Library.

The notebooks – valued in the millions – had been housed at the university, located north of London, but were unaccounted for in 2001 and initially considered misplaced. But in 2020, the library issued a public appeal for any information about the two small notebooks, one of which contains Darwin’s important 1837 “Tree of Life” sketch.

The notebooks had been removed from safekeeping in the library’s special collections storage for onsite photography in September 2000. But during a subsequent routine check in January 2001, the staff discovered the notebooks had not been returned to their proper place, the library says.

The two notebooks – each are about the size of a paperback book – were returned to the library March 9, 2022, in good condition, wrapped in plastic film, in their original archive box within a pink gift bag with the message: “Librarian, Happy Easter, X.”

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“They may be tiny, just the size of postcards, but the notebooks’ impact on the history of science, and their importance to our world-class collections here, cannot be overstated,” Cambridge University librarian Jessica Gardner said in a statement on the library’s website.

Darwin, who lived south of London, made notes in the books about his theories “in terms of geographical distribution, the origin of humans and classification by descent,” the library said. The notes were made in 1837 after the scientist had returned from his five-year trip around the world on the HMS Beagle. Two decades later, in 1859, Darwin would publish “On the Origin of Species,” which detailed his theories of evolution and natural selection.