David Bressan Contributor
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I deal with the rocky road to our modern understanding of earth
Notebook containing Darwin's original 1837 diagram of the Tree-of-Life, one of two such notebooks ... [+] CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Cambridge University Library has reported two notebooks used by Charles Darwin for his private writings as stolen. One of the notebooks contains Darwin's famous quote 'I think' and the first-ever Tree-of-Life diagram drawn by Darwin in 1837, two decades ahead of the publication of the theory of evolution in his book 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life', in November 1859.
The notebooks were last seen in November 2000, when they were taken out of the collection to be digitized. During a subsequent routine check-in January 2001, it was found that the small box containing the two notebooks had not been returned to its proper place. At that time, the library was undergoing extensive renovation work, and it was thought that the notebooks had been misplaced internally. The library hosts around ten million books, maps, manuscripts and other objects on more than 130 miles (210 km) of shelving in its collections. Following a series of exhaustive searches, the largest in the library’s history, curators have concluded that the notebooks have likely been stolen.
The matter has been reported to Cambridgeshire Police and Interpol, and the library made a public appeal for help in locating the notebooks.
The notebooks are described as being roughly postcard-sized, with reddish-brown covers, and were, at the time of their disappearance, kept in a blue cardboard box. The two notebooks bear the letters 'B' and 'C' respectively on their covers.
The cover of the missing 'Notebook B.' CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
The two Darwin notebooks had previously been digitised and their content is available online.
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