IN an accidental discovery, a customer received the exact book she had inscribed and gifted her father 40 years ago from a second-hand bookstore in Whitehaven. 

Michael Moon, who owns Michael Moon bookshop on Lowther Street, sold an edition of an Aldous Huxley book to a woman who 'lives hundreds of miles away'... only to find it was the very book she had given to her father four decades ago, still containing her handwritten gift inscription.

Owner Michael, who celebrated his 80th birthday earlier this month, said: "Forty years later this book has landed back in the hands of the original giver.

"Amazing, you couldn't make it up, could you?

“In the month when I mark my 80th birthday, still working as a bookseller and in my 65th year of full-time employment without ever having been out of work, receiving a message such as this is just the cherry on the cake…

"It’s a real rarity, believe me," he said. 

Michael said the customer's father is 'really looking over her shoulder'.

News and Star: Michael Moon's Bookshop unearths 40 year old gift for customer 'hundreds of miles away' Michael Moon's Bookshop unearths 40 year old gift for customer 'hundreds of miles away' (Image: Supplied)

"What we do in a way, we're a kind of limbo or a halfway house between the person who shuffles off this mortal coil and the person who would like to enjoy a book after their death in a way. 

"It's a kind of serendipity really," he said.