Darwin's stolen notebooks were returned: "Happy Easter"

The manuscripts were found in a pink gift bag placed in the library, with a note wishing the librarian a happy Easter.

The books were found on March 16 and appear at first sight undamaged.

The notebooks disappeared in 2001, but were not reported to the police until 2020, when they searched without success among the library's ten million books, maps and other documents.

The international police organization Interpol sent out a search warrant for the books, which are considered to be worth several million.

Notes from the circumnavigation of the world

Charles Darwin, who is usually described as the father of the theory of evolution, wrote in the notebooks shortly after he returned from his voyage around the world in the ship HMS Beagle in the 1830s.

It was on that journey that he got the ideas for what would become the book 

, where the theory of evolution is launched and in which the Tree of Life illustration plays a key role.