Story of lost manuscript to be told at library

IN 2014, a customer browsing Lorraine Smith’s Warrnambool bookshop found an unusual artefact hidden in the pages of a copy of Alice in Wonderland.

“I didn’t know what to do with it,” she said. “I’d try and read it, but I could barely tell if it was in English.

“I was talking with our daughter who lives in Brisbane and studied English history at uni, and she said, ‘send it up.’

“I thought, it’s probably a kids’ project soaked in cold tea to make it look old… but my daughter knew exactly what it was.”

Smith’s customer had found a legal document made of vellum, or calf skin, which originated in Yorkshire in 1583, and had arrived in Warrnambool via Gippsland.

“We had it authenticated by a professor who specialises in old documents, and could read it,” Smith said.

“She told us a bit about it, and I was able to do some research about the people named in it.”

In 2016, Smith published a book about the discovery, and the information she gathered, called Journey of a Lost Manuscript, and is coming to Bannockburn Library on Tuesday 21 November to speak all about the document’s travels.

“My talk is about what I found out, how I found it out, and there’s humour all the way through,” she said. “I don’t usually get many questions, because people sit there looking as if they’re stunned.

“It’s really quite an incredible story, and there are so many lucky breaks that I had, and coincidences. When I thought I’d given up, I’d get another clue and go again.”

She has delivered 300 talks within the last seven years, and said she still gets a “kick out of it.”

“I love it,” Smith said. “I’ve done lots of talks in Melbourne, and for Probus clubs, but I really love the library talks because people have come there because they want to hear the story.”

Next year, Smith is travelling to England to return the document to the West Yorkshire Archives, the same place where it came from.

“It has more meaning over there, rather than here,” she said. Register for the talk at bit.ly/49C54mm.