"Guardians of the Lost Library" is a 1993 comic book story made by Don Rosa for The Walt Disney Company, mentioned by Comics Buyer's Guide as "possibly the greatest comic book story of all time". Although afraid at the time of its creation of cramming too many historical details into the story, Rosa himself mentions in Uncle Scrooge #383 (November, 2008) that in fan mail he receives to this day, "Guardians of the Lost Library" to his own surprise is often referred to as "'the best Rosa story' or 'the best Duck story' or even 'the best comic book story' (?!!) that fans say they've ever read."
In this story Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey and Louie, and General Snozzie search for the Lost Library of Alexandria. This story was Don Rosa's first use of General Snozzie, the Junior Woodchucks bloodhound.
The story was first published in the Danish Anders And & Co. #1993-42; the first American publication was in Uncle Scrooge Adventures #27, in July 1994.
Background
Rosa created "Guardians of the Lost Library" at the request of Scandinavia-based, European Disney publisher Egmont in reference to the fact that Norway had officially declared 1993 to be "The Year of The Book" in order to promote reading Rosa figured that he would honor the written word best by sending the Ducks on an epic quest for the Library of Alexandria, where he:
:"could show the evolution of books from papyrus scrolls through parchment tomes and the first Gutenberg volumes on up to the present day. [...] In the process, it was easy to show how books have recorded and even inspired the advancements of science and art through the ages [...]. And what could be better than for the key to tracing the Library around the world be that most famous mythical book of all - the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook?!" While the 2008 reprint featured a superior printing quality and the 2008 cover was shaded as usual with North American Disney comics, with the reprinted story itself Gemstone replaced Gladstone Publishing's 1994 finer-graded colorization featuring many soft gradients with Egmont's European solid-hue color scheme.