The New York Public library recently got a return for a self-help book… 54 years after its original due date.
And what was the book about? How to keep your marriage sexually satisfying.
According to Jezebel, the library received a very late volume of ‘Ideal Marriage’ by Th.H Van de Velde M.D, sent from Arizona. The book, was obviously too good to put down, with the original due date of August 17th, 1959 having been overlooked.
Billy Parrot, a library staff member, told Jezebel that the text:
“…is a very wordy and very scientific instruction manual for sexual activity written in 1926. However dry and scientific, it is certainly more juicy than Tropic of Cancer!”
Maybe even more humiliating than having to return the book 54 years later, was the one line that happened to be underlined in the entire passage:
“There was only one sentence underlined dealing with men who ‘only care to relieve their own tensions and care nothing for their wives as an individual or mate.”
The book was returned to the New York library with an apology too:
‘We found this book amongst my late brother-in-law’s things. 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!!’
So if you’re still mortified by the 50 Shades of Grey lurking under your bed, maybe return it before somebody else does…