When you’re turning to a sex manual from the 1920s for help in your failing marriage, well, let’s just say you can’t blame a book if it can’t be revived. But at least the family of a library patron who failed to return a 1926 how-to guide all the way back in 1959 has managed to finally bring it back, albeit 54 years late.

Over at the the Mid-Manhattan Library’s Biblio File blog (h/t to Pix11 News), Managing Librarian Billy Parrott writes of an oddball return from 2013.

A family member who was going through the now deceased library patron’s stuff in Arizona found a library book he’d failed to return more than 50 years ago — Ideal Marriage by Th.H. Van de Velde, M.D., written around 1926, was supposed to be returned in 1959, Parrott explains.

And it seems the “very wordy and very scientific” manual regarding bedroom business didn’t do much to keep the man’s marriage thriving, “a shocked in-law” wrote in a note along with the returned tome.

“We found this book amongst my late brother-in-law’s things,” the note read. “Funny thing is the book didn’t support his efforts with his first (and only) marriage… it failed! No wonder he hid the book! So sorry!!”

Who knows how many other marriages could’ve been helped by that manual, if only it’d been returned after two weeks on time. This is why you should always return books on time, kids! You never know whose marriage you could be ruining.

Better Late Than Never [Biblio File]

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