When a visitor to her second-hand bookshop in Warrnambool picked up a well-worn 1924 edition of Alice in Wonderland and an unusual a document was discovered between the pages, it started a journey back through time to 1583.

It was one of many books Lorraine had picked up from The Salvation Army in November 2013 and brought back to the shelves of her bookshop on Raglan Parade and there it sat for two months until someone opened the cover.

While at first Lorraine didnt know what to do with it, she has now turned her search for the documents original owner and how it came to be in her shop into a book called Journey of a Lost Manuscript.

And like any mystery novel, the book has a few plot twists, turns and surprises and it turns out that she wasnt the only one in the past 433 years who had a keen interest in the document.

I think its just exciting that it ended up here. From the 16th century and to end up in my bookshop, Lorraine said. Ive loved it. It took me about 18 months to research. I was stuck a few times and thought, Im never going to find out.

It was two-and-a-half years ago, in January 2014, when a visitor to the shop handed her the Alice in Wonderland book and document. Down the bottom was a date 1583. I thought it cant be, surely not, Lorraine said. It sat on my desk for six months. I didnt know what to do with it.

It was during a call to her daughter Karyn, who lives in Brisbane, that Lorraine realised the document might be something special.

She said, Mum, you know I have a special interest in the Tudor period, because she had studied English literature and history at uni, Lorraine said. So I sent it to her, just by ordinary mail.

Her daughter then had it authenticated by a university professor who specialises in old manuscripts. The professor confirmed it was an old parchment written on vellum, which is made from calf skin. She said, Yes, its genuine. Where on earth did you get it?, Lorraine said. There are not many of these types of parchments in Australia.

She was just amazed. She said it was in such good condition. She said it must have been kept inside and old Bible or something, but also taken out every now and then to breathe. She transcribed the first 10 lines for us and that gave me a couple of names and I was then able to research these names and eventually I was able to track it to Warrnambool.

And it turns out Jack Bullen whose wife Betty had owned the Alice in Wonderland book lives just up the road from Lorraine. Betty had passed away in Warrnambool in 2003.

Lorraine said it took her and her daughter a long time to transcribe the rest of the document, which was written before standardised English was established in the 1700s.

It names Elizabeth the first. It doesnt say the first but it was Elizabeth Queen of England, Ireland and France and she was reigning in 1583, she said.

Lorraine discovered that the document spent most of last century clipped inside a book called The Story of Morley which features a photo of the document and was brought to Australia in 1924.

Coincidentally, that was the year the Alice in Wonderland book was published and the same year that Betty Bullen the owner of the Alice in Wonderland book was born. Both books turned up on my bookshelf, in different parts of the shop, Lorraine said.

The Story of Morley (and the document) was given to Bettys grandson more than a decade ago by his aunt Margaret in Adelaide. Margarets mother had asked it be handed down to the oldest grandson.

Lorraine searched for six months to locate Jack Bullen. Jack, 93, knew of the documents existence, but hed not seen it for 60 years. He was rapt, she said.

Jack insisted on driving Lorraine to Adelaide to meet his sister-in-law Margaret, 86, who had had the book and document for 30 years.

It was Jacks daughter who had taken the two books to the Salvos while cleaning out some of her sons possessions in 2013.

They never liked this Alice in Wonderland book. Shes a creepy Alice in Wonderland and it used to scare them when they were kids, Lorraine said. They knew of the existence of this document but obviously she didnt know it was in these books or gave it no thought.

And how the document came to be in the Alice in Wonderland book is still a mystery.

Before tracking down Jack, Lorraine had traced the documents origins to Gildersome, near Morley, in Yorkshire, England.

Lorraine had contacted a local historian in England who gave her some information on a name written in pencil on the back of the document Reuben Brown.

Reuben Brown had been in possession of the document since at least 1914, probably longer, and it was his two spinster daughters who brought it to Australia inside the book The Story of Morley in 1924 to give to their brother in Gippsland who had migrated to Australia in 1883.

I think they brought out family heirlooms with them because their brother had kids and they could be handed down, Lorraine said.

I had another breakthrough. Even though Id found Reuben Brown, I really didnt know much until I started researching the names that are on the document the Popeleys and the Appleyards.

Someone else had gone searching for it in the 1930s. It was known about. It wasnt some obscure thing.

Lorraine tracked down an Appleyard family researcher in Perth called Brian Appleyard, who knew of the documents existence because a distant relative of his, Benjamin Appleyard from Canada, had written about his search for it in the 1930s.

Benjamin had traced the document to Reuben Brown and had travelled to England to find it.

When he got there he was told by the town clerk that Reuben Brown had died and his children had gone to Australia. They sent him down to the library to have a look at the book that had been written with a picture of the illustration in it, Lorraine said.

There, the assistant librarian told him that two of the sisters had returned from Australia, so he tracked them down.

Lorraine said she was planning a trip to Perth to visit Brian, who is in his 80s, and show him the document.

She said Brian had initially doubted that what Lorraine had in her possession was an original because at one stage in 1929 they thought it had been destroyed by fire.

Lorraines book Journey of the Lost Manuscript traces the documents journey from England to Warrnambool and who the people were that are named in it.

During her research, Lorraine travelled to Morley and Gildersome.

We are actually going back next year and taking copies of my book over and giving a public talk in the library there, she said.

Ill be sending a copy to the State Library in Melbourne and the National Library in Canberra.

However, there is still at least one mystery yet to be solved in the puzzle of the Tudor document Lorraine still dont know who it was that bought her the Alice in Wonderland book and parchment that day.

Im still hoping she will hear about my book, read it and realise its the old parchment she found that day.