What a lovely story to read about: a priceless piece of history has recently been returned to the UK after being lost for more than 150 years.
The memorial book, which was placed at the site of Lord Byron's burial vault in St Mary Magdalene Church in Hucknall Torkard, outside Nottingham, went missing sometime after 1834 and finally surfaced in 2008 at a church sale in Savannah, Georgia!
How it got there remains a mystery, but the book was kindly donated to the National Library of Scotland [NLS] by Marilyn Solana who picked up the book off a stall at the sale for $35.
Plans are underway to conserve the book, which is a little the worse for wear after its travels, and to digitise images of the book and make them available online.
The book itself contains more than just signatures of people who visited Byron's grave - it holds personal tributes and some poems left by more than 800 people, many of them famous figures of the day.
The book will now join the multitude of other Byron items held by the John Murray Archive at the NLS.
Image: scottchan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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