Library books out 2 centuries returned

A 215-year-old book that was part of the first lending library in Camden, Maine, has been returned. Oliver Goldsmith’s 1790 “History of England, Vol. 1’’ was returned recently by a California man who found the book and two others among volumes collected by his grandfather, a former Portland police officer known to browse the city’s markets. The three books date to 1796, when the Federal Society Library of “Cambden’’ was founded. By 1826, the Federal Society Library had disbanded. It is unclear how the Goldsmith book made its way to Portland. Chuck Regan of Thousand Oaks, Calif., told the Bangor Daily News he hopes he does not have to pay a fine for returning books more than 200 years overdue. (AP)