Four charged with stealing rare works
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LEXINGTON, Ky. — Four men were indicted on robbery and art theft charges for allegedly taking rare works from a university library, including a first edition of Charles Darwin’s 1859 volume on natural selection.
The men allegedly tried to sell the items to Christie’s auction house in New York.
The men are accused of taking items from Lexington’s Transylvania University library, including Darwin’s “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,” in which he first discussed his theory of evolution.
Also taken were a two-volume natural history published in the 1500s, pencil sketches by John James Audubon done in the 1850s and an illuminated manuscript written in 1425.
One of the men indicted is a Transylvania student; the others are current or former students at the University of Kentucky.
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