|
Fact |
|
| AUTHOR |
|
| RAILWAY |
|
| VOLAPÜK |
|
| ELEPHANTINA |
|
| NOVGOROD |
|
| STORIES |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
News (if there is some, it's rarely good)
Now, what about Kindle? Deeply disturbing or a liberating piece of technology? So, I think: if you cannot beat them, then why not join them? Download A Littel Read Book. There may be a good reason for the title...
|
Beware!... I spent some of the darker days of winter transcribing a 17th Century text by an Ipswich schoolmaster named Cave Beck. His Universal Character was one of the very first attempts to promote a Universal Language - sadly, like a North Korean rocket, it failed to do much after launch. I am pleased to say that the Language Creation Society in the US has kindly agreed to host - and even promote - my transcription on their on-line journal : click here to be entertained and instructed ... A Postscript... I have signed a contract with the publishers of an excellent series of short-story anthologies, Postcripts. I have written three longish short stories set in the early 20th century, each dealing with an historical matter which almost certainly has been puzzling you for some time. The first of these has now appeared, and the other two will appear over the next 12 months or so. Visit the Postscripts web-site to discover more about these anthologies or look at the index for the new volume. In the interim, a very readable collection of the papers delivered at the 400th anniversary conference on Sir Thomas Urquhart, Scottish translator, linguist, mathematician, Royalist and general odd-ball, has now been published. It is available from the Cromarty Arts Trust. My own paper on Sir Thomas and his scheme for a Universal Language (or not) is contained therein. (For those of you unfamiliar with Sir Thomas, I might, entirely without blushing, point you to his appearance in my book 'A Handbook of Volapük'. He does indeed make an appearance in my current work-in-progress, alongside The Urinator...) | ||
|
|
|
| |
| My fourth novel, Novgorod the Great was published in September 2010. |
|
The paths of two lonely travellers cross in the ancient and run-down Russian city of Novgorod the Great. It is 1833, and the last huzzahs of the Napoleonic Wars still echo back and forth across Europe, South America and Russia. When the two travellers are invited to keep an old man company on his short approach to death's door, they pass a night of reminiscence - their own, the old man's, his nurse's and those of a supporting cast (whose members are not always alive). Here, you can read of lusty troubadours, South American elephants, squirrels, rhubarb and, not least, pickled eggs. Read more ... | |
|
|
|
| |
| I was interviewed by the Dundee Courier at the time of publication (May 2008) of this short novel. The full-page spread was printed under the banner headline The Elephant Man... |
|
Just outside Dundee, in April 1706, an elephant sighs forlornly, topples over, and drowns in a ditch by the side of the road from Broughty Ferry. Foiling almost all the energetic attempts of the citizenry to make off with large chunks of meat and other elephantine trophies, local surgeon, botanist and anatomist Dr Patrick Blair embarks on a mission to be the first in Britain to dissect an elephant and to complete a pioneering scientific study of the dead animal's internal organs and skeleton. Read more ... | |
|
|
|
| |
| I am delighted to learn from a respected linguist in the Netherlands that an article has been created about me in the Volapük version of Wikipedia: click here to read it... |
|
In April 1891, two matters greatly excite the inhabitants of Edinburgh: the decennial Population Census; and the Annual General Meeting of the Edinburgh Society for the Propagation of a Universal Language. The General Secretary of this Society, Mr. Justice, is a militant champion of the highly-popular language "Volapük"; but he is locked in a battle for ascendancy with Dr. Bosman, shameless apologist for "Esperanto". Read more ... | |
|
|
|
| |
|
This novel was short-listed for the 2004 Saltire Prize for the First Book of the Year. |
|
This tells, for the first and last time, the story of the construction of a railway-line between Garve and Ullapool in the north of Scotland. The hero, Alexander Auchmuty Seth Kininmonth, has dreams of finding personal happiness, fame and fortune on this project. Alas, he finds that the combined forces of a Scottish climate, ignoble finance-capital and an assortment of feuding millennarians conspire against him. Read more ... | |
|
|
|
| |
| The original idea for my story about Big Horace and his tie collection came from a stray email from Belgium; now, however, the most excellent Museum of Corporate Neckties (late of California, now expanding into Arizona) has adopted Big Horace: their site rewards a visit... We hope for further sponsorship in these straitened times! |
|
Take a few minutes to read some of my unpublished stories. They have been accumulating for several decades. Some are well past their use-by date, others should never have had a use-by date in the first place. But - what do I care? - I'm paying for this web-site, not you, so why shouldn't I?
Read more ... | |
|
|
|
| |
|
My mentor, Mr Kininmonth (the elder) ... 
|
...politely requests that you leave this site - and the rest of our fragile planet - as tidy as (or tidier than) you found it; but, as in the matters of the rising price of snuff and the declining standard of pickled herring, is resigned to disappointment... Alas! Mr. Kininmonth, you look how I sometimes feel - why? Click here to find out more, if you dare..
| ||
|
|
|
| |
|
Copyrights:
All stories and book extracts appearing on this site © Andrew Drummond 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. Photos of the author taken by Graham Clark. |
The usual Disclaimers:
| ||
|
|
|
| |