Annals of Karsus - Have I Bugged My Gale Quest?

[Shadow_Wake]

Went into Sundries as per the walkthroughs and picked up/read the books in the vaults. However, no Elminster appearing at camp. I've read other threads which note that Gale has to read the annals for the quest to trigger correctly and the only way of fixing it is to reload an earlier save. Problem being is that I "oh, well'd" and moved on to MANY other quests... needless to say, I do not have a save game that old that I can go back to. And it's now been so long, I can't even remember whether I still have the book stashed somewhere or not! Is there any way to get this fixed/back on the Gale quest-wagon, or have I royally skewed my quest?