Cambridge University librarian Jessica Gardner’s heart was racing as she pulled two postcard-sized notebooks bound tight in plastic wrap from the bright pink gift bag found outside her office last month.

She held her breath, hoping this meant that two historical artifacts – missing for over two decades – were finally home.

“It quickly became apparent to us that we were indeed looking at what we’d been hoping would be returned to us one day – the two precious Charles Darwin notebooks,” Gardner said in an interview with The Washington Post.

The artifacts, known as Notebooks B and C, date back to 1837 and are records of Darwin’s first articulations of his theory of evolution by natural selection, Gardner said. They include Darwin’s own handwritten notes, diagrams and drawings. The notebooks were dropped off anonymously; an investigation by Cambridgeshire police is ongoing.

Librarians first noticed the notebooks were missing during a routine archive check in January 2001. The items had been removed about four months earlier to be photographed. Over the next 16 years, university librarians revisited the case but made no progress. Some suspected the notebooks had been stolen, while others believed they had been misplaced.

When Gardner became the university’s head librarian in 2017, she decided to take a different approach. First, she contacted police, who opened an investigation. Then she led a public information blitz, raising awareness of the missing artifacts and appealing for help.

Experts told Gardner not to give up hope, offering examples of people returning items decades after they disappeared. Much to her surprise, that’s exactly what happened.

“I didn’t know that I’d see that in my lifetime,” she said. “I’m just absolutely thrilled.”

Gardner’s colleague spotted the pink gift bag in a public area of the library near the librarian’s office suite on March 9. The colleague suspected there was something unusual about the package and brought it to Gardner, she said.

Together, they opened the bag and pulled out a dark blue box and a large brown envelope with a strange typewritten message.

“Librarian

Happy Easter

X”

Inside were the two notebooks bound together back-to-back, their cover pages with the letters “B” and “C” visible on either side. They notified the police.

Gardner and her colleagues were finally given permission to open the package on March 14, she said. Cambridge University Library’s head of conservation steadily unwrapped the notebooks as the others watched, Gardner said.

“Once that was opened, we began to turn the pages, and there was this sense of a real joy,” she said.

There was one page in particular that Gardner wanted to see firsthand. On page 36 of Notebook B, she said, is Darwin’s most recognizable sketch: the tree of life. The illustration, which Darwin drew in the summer of 1837, was the first time he began exploring the idea that different species can have common ancestors.

“I was shaking – to see that page,” Gardner said.

The notebooks are in “incredibly good condition,” she said, adding that they seemed to have been kept in a dry place and that all the pages were intact. The artifacts went through four rounds of verification from experts in scientific heritage, Darwin and antiquarian books.

“These two notebooks are perhaps the most important evidence of scientific discovery – the theory of evolution,” Gardner said. “And however playfully they came back, in terms of packaging and that little short note, these are the real objects and they’re in great condition.”

The university library will display the notebooks as part of an exhibit called “Darwin in Conversation,” which opens in July. The exhibition is a selection from 15,000 letters in Darwin’s personal collection. It will travel to the New York Public Library in 2023.

“It seems just perfect timing to be able to say thank you to everyone and give people a chance to enjoy [the notebooks],” Gardner said. “Because that’s what we’re here for at the library: We’re here to study, we’re here for scholarship and we’re here for the much wider public to feel part of the long, cultural, historical legacy which we look after.”

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