Missing manuscripts worth nearly $1 million found

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. --Two missing handwritten manuscripts by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges owned by a Harvard Square bookstore were found in a spot not that far away: in the store.

The short story manuscripts, usually held in a safe at Lame Duck Books, had been missing since Nov. 12 at an antiquarian book fair in Hamburg, Germany, where they were exhibited by store owner John W. Wronoski. They had been presumed stolen.

Wronoski found the manuscripts Monday afternoon, stuck behind a photograph "just by weird chance," he said. "I am inordinately relieved."

The manuscripts, "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote" and "The Library of Babel," were both first published in 1939 and have been in the Lame Duck collection for four years. They were listed in the store's catalog at $450,000 and $500,000 respectively, according to Saul Roll, a longtime employee at the store, which sells rare books, art, and manuscripts.

Roll discovered that the manuscripts were missing on Nov. 16 when he brought out the store's Borges collection to display during a reception. After failing to find the drafts during a search of the store, Roll and Wronoski filed a report on Nov. 17 with Cambridge police and Interpol.

Borges, who died in 1986 at age 86, was a poet and essayist who also lived in Spain and Switzerland.