Chesterton, G. K. The Return of Don Quixote (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1927) 302 p.

The librarian of Seawood Abbey is an eccentric scholar of Paleo-Hittite civilization named Michael Herne.

The librarian was certainly of the sort that is remote from the daylight, and suited to be a shade among the the shades of a great library. His figure was long and lithe, but he held one shoulder habitually a little higher than the other; his hair was of a dusty lightness. His face was lean and his lineaments long and straight; but his wan blue eyes were a shade wider apart than other men's; increasing an effect of having one eye off. It was indeed rather a weird effect, as if his eye were somewhere else; not in the mere sense of looking elsewhere, but almost as if it were in some other head than his own. And indeed, in a manner, it was; it was in the head of a Hittite ten thousand years ago. (p. 24-25).

When Herne climbs up a very tall ladder to the top of a towering bookcase a visitor plays a trick on him and removes the ladder. But Herne becomes so absorbed in this reading that he forgets to come down and is found perching atop the case the next day, book in hand.

When asked to perform in a play about Richard the Lion Heart, Herne at first declines, saying it is not his period. But then he embarks of a study of medieval history and accepts the roll of Richard. After performing he refuses to remove his costume and works to revolutionize English society by bringing about a return to medieval values.