Emeritus Professor John Foster from Queen's University Belfast's Institute of Irish Studies  ran up a fine of more than £8,500 for a library book in his possession that was 47 years overdue.

The book is by poet Arthur Hugh Clough, a Victorian poet and he only came across it while clearing out his locker at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where he previously worked.

The volume, entitled The Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough, bore a due date stamp of October 11, 1966.

The McClay Library waived the £8,577.50 fine that would have been payable for its late return, however, saying it was just pleased to have it back again.

He told The Independent: "I had been a fan of Clough's, whom I had always thought of as an underrated poet overshadowed by Whitman, Browning and others, but I had left Queen's by that time and was at the University of Oregon as a doctoral student.

"I saw that it also had a stamp saying that Queen's had obtained the book in May 1921 so it was definitely their book and it was 47 years late, so outrageously overdue

I suppose the moral of the story if you discover an overdue book is make sure it's really, really overdue before you think about returning it."