Stolen Lewis Carroll letter found through eBay

A sharp-eyed shopper spotted a letter written by Lewis Carroll for sale on eBay, and called a friend, a librarian at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Sure enough, a letter written by Carroll to “My Dear Winnie” (the daughter of writer George MacDonald) was missing: they hadn’t even noticed. Thanks to eBay, police were able to track the purchaser, who gave the letter back to the library. Police are now trying to track the path of the stolen letter:

“Tracing it back all the hands it has gone through since it left Yale – that’s going to be the difficult part,” said Lt. Mike Patten, a spokesman for the Yale University Police Department.