Kristen Inbody

kinbody@greatfallstribune.com

Update: In an email to the library, Ali Marie Matheson wrote: "Hi, someone sent me the article today about the main who had kept my Dad's book since 1982. I have shared that story with my family and friends and I am positive that my father would have been both touched and amused."

The Great Falls Library recently received a letter from a man confessing to stealing a library book in 1982.

The 1975 Richard Matheson novel “Bid Time Return” was in bad shape and deteriorated with every reading, the man wrote. He had the book restored, a process that removed any trace that it was a library book, except for a number stamped on the dedication page.

The man said he read the book at least 25 times.

“It’s one of the, if not the greatest sci-fi/romance stories ever written; it’s absolutely fascinating” and the swiped edition is now a highly sought-after collectible, he wrote.

Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour starred in the movie version of the story, called "Somewhere in Time."

The book thief met the author, who died in 2013, and had the purloined book signed to him even though the book “wasn’t mine to begin with,” he wrote.

Matheson is best known for his 1954 novel “I Am Legend,” but also wrote “The Shrinking Man,” “Hell House,” “What Dreams May Come” and many others.

Having the stolen book has “just been bugging me,” wrote the reader, whom the library didn’t identify.

“This is not my book, it belongs back in the Great Falls Public Library – wrongfully taken, yes, but if you can, kindly take into consideration it has been loved and cared for all these years and know I am sorry for taking it,” he wrote.

The book was returned with a $200 donation and an expression of “hoping for a chance for redemption here.”

Director Kathy Mora told library trustees that she wouldn’t condone theft of library materials but “the effort and funds he put into caring for the book are remarkable.”

The quiet librarian who changed Great Falls for the better