“Better late than never” was a saying applied to a California man who returned a book to his desk a century after its due date, according to the New York Post.

Jim Perry has restored the degraded and worn-out copy of a book “A Family History of the United States” It was issued in 1892 to the St. Helena Public Library 96 years after its due date, after it was borrowed by his deceased wife’s grandfather and never returned.

“This is an old book that’s been in our family for 5 generations,” Perry told the Washington Post, “assuming the library is interested in preserving remnants of history.”.

It turns out that historian Benson Losing’s book was likely part of the original collection of St Helens Library and may have been part of the inventory at another earlier site – the nearby Carnegie Building, built in 1908.

The library discovered that the book was taken by someone from Perry’s wife’s family in 1927. Perry believes it is possible that his wife’s grandfather, John McCormick, borrowed the book in an effort to teach his two young daughters about American history..

“This is definitely the oldest book I’ve ever seen,” said Chris Creden, director of the library..”