Perhaps They Should Rename the Bookstore ‘Daffy Duck’

If you’ve ever hunted for your glasses, only to be informed that they’re already on your head, don’t feel too bad about it. It could have been worse.

After reporting two Jorge Luis Borges manuscripts valued at $450,000 and $500,000 missing, striking fear in the heart of book fetishists everywhere, the owner of Harvard Square’s Lame Duck books found the manuscripts inside some photographic binder sleeves.

Apparently John Wronoski and his team engaged in some absentminded packing after a book fair in Hamburg, Germany. When they returned to the States, a store employee couldn’t find the manuscripts, and Wronoski reported it missing. The next logical step would have been to print an image of the manuscripts on milk cartons everywhere.

All kidding aside, Bostonist admires the aplomb with which the store fessed up to misplacing the manuscript. Employee Saul Roll told the Crimson: “We had to admit ‘on camera that we’re stupid idiots, but [we’re] admitting to that with a great degree of relief and happiness.’” That’s okay – better to look like “stupid idiots” than having the lifeblood of your business stolen by some creep who peddles Borges on the black market.

The other good news is that the Tale of the Missing Manuscript generated much press for the bookstore, Borges, and manuscripts in general, reminding people that books are indeed valuable and worth hanging on to. If you’re interested, but you can’t dig a million bucks’ worth of spare change from your sofa, you could always get a cheaper copy of “Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote” and “The Library of Babel” online.

Image of Jorge Luis Borges taken from the University of Iowa’s Borges Center.