Product Description
"Aside from being aware that he was a pre-eminent scientist of his day, as a family we know very little about the gentleman who apparently wrote this text." Eighteen months ago, a manuscript was found. Written in 1900, the pages recount one man's story, a story of the future, a story about the end of humanity and the final battle between good and evil. James D Quinton spent a year transcribing this remarkable account and now, at last, over one hundred years later, this incredible tale is available. A speculative fiction novel combining elements of science fiction/fantasy and pre-apocalyptic dystopia, The Victorian Time Traveller shows us civilization on the edge of darkness. "If only you could have seen for yourself what becomes of the human race, you would weep, as I do now." Discover how the world ends...
From the Back Cover
"Aside from being aware that he was a pre-eminent scientist of his day, as a family we know very little about the gentleman who apparently wrote this text."
Eighteen months ago, a manuscript was found. Written in 1900, the pages recount one man's story, a story of the future, a story about the end of humanity and the final battle between good and evil.
James D Quinton spent a year transcribing this remarkable account and now, at last, over one hundred years later, this incredible tale is available.
A speculative fiction novel combining elements of science fiction/fantasy and pre-apocalyptic dystopia, The Victorian Time Traveller shows us civilization on the edge of darkness.
"If only you could have seen for yourself what becomes of the human race, you would weep, as I do now."
Discover how the world ends...
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Foreword
I still recall that day, almost eighteen months ago, when I found in the bottom drawer of my great aunt's bureau, the manuscript of the book you are holding in your hands now.
It had been three months since her death from a heart attack at the age of ninety-eight.
Harriet Tretheway was an eccentric. She was my late grandmother's sister, and unlike my grandmother, she never married or had children. When we were growing up my sister and myself would see her at least once a week, and she would entertain us with tales of her wild youth and her time working as a nurse during World War Two.
Following her death the unfortunate task of clearing her modest semi-detached property fell to my mother. I, of course, volunteered my services. My aunt had a great deal of `things', which she'd accumulated on her travels. Slowly we made progress. Many of her belongings had to be taken to charity shops, as despite our fond memories of the items, we simply had no room for it all.
I remember approaching the bureau, a beautiful antique piece of furniture that my sister had been left in the will, with trepidation, fearing that its four drawers would be filled with bric-a-brac that would take hours to sort. I started at the bottom. The drawer was stiff; the wood had expanded, probably due to excess water dripping from a nearby plant stand. Eventually I pulled it open and was greeted with the site of a stack of sheets. The loose leaves on top were old bills, some dating from the 1950s. Beneath however, I found a faded, stained, bundle of paper tied up with string. I immediately felt that this was something interesting, but I certainly wasn't expecting what I found.
Aside from being aware that he was a pre-eminent scientist of his day, as a family we know very little about the gentleman who apparently wrote this text.
From what my mother can remember, my grandmother and great aunt did not know much of him themselves. Once, when my mother made an attempt at a family tree, my grandmother recounted a story about Harriet and herself visiting their paternal uncle in a sanatorium. She had been five when their parents and uncle's wife, Joyce, had made that strange trip. In fact it was one of her earliest memories. She recalled a feeling of great sadness. This would have been roughly 1915. At the time of writing I have been unable to track down any documentation on my great, great uncle, aside from the photograph that is on the front cover, but my investigation is ongoing. I do know that he passed away in 1917 and is buried in a family plot in a church graveyard in Norfolk, England.
Upon reading the text, my immediate thought was that this was some kind of joke. Indeed my family thought the same. Perhaps my aunt's final jape? But I really can't believe that. True, her imagination was lively, but this goes beyond anything she ever told us. To dismiss this bizarre possibility we have had the paper analysed, and it has been radiocarbon dated to the early twentieth century. Remarkable as it is, we can only conclude that this document is true, as true as it was for the man writing it in 1900.
Some of the document was badly damaged. We found woodworm at the bottom of the bureau and it seemed they had at some time made their home in the manuscript. So I took on the task of transcription, filling in the damaged parts using, like my great, great uncle before me, a `literary liberty'.
It is really impossible to quantify the implications of what is written in this book. Although my family and myself aren't at all religious, after reading and believing this manuscript, we are sure that our lives will never be the same again. Of course some will say this is a hoax, or perhaps that though there may be something veridical in it, it is simply a confused, drug-induced vision. I do, however, wonder what my great aunt and my great, great uncle's wife thought of it. I suppose we will never know, but it would not be surprising if they thought he had lost his mind.
In a further twist, I believe, although my family do not agree, that he is holding a copy of this very book in the picture on the front cover. Presenting a rather interesting paradox: could he have seen his own story in print before he'd even written it?
Finally, our simple hope in publishing the manuscript is that the message my great, great uncle left us can be espoused.
I still recall that day, almost eighteen months ago, when I found in the bottom drawer of my great aunt's bureau, the manuscript of the book you are holding in your hands now.
It had been three months since her death from a heart attack at the age of ninety-eight.
Harriet Tretheway was an eccentric. She was my late grandmother's sister, and unlike my grandmother, she never married or had children. When we were growing up my sister and myself would see her at least once a week, and she would entertain us with tales of her wild youth and her time working as a nurse during World War Two.
Following her death the unfortunate task of clearing her modest semi-detached property fell to my mother. I, of course, volunteered my services. My aunt had a great deal of `things', which she'd accumulated on her travels. Slowly we made progress. Many of her belongings had to be taken to charity shops, as despite our fond memories of the items, we simply had no room for it all.
I remember approaching the bureau, a beautiful antique piece of furniture that my sister had been left in the will, with trepidation, fearing that its four drawers would be filled with bric-a-brac that would take hours to sort. I started at the bottom. The drawer was stiff; the wood had expanded, probably due to excess water dripping from a nearby plant stand. Eventually I pulled it open and was greeted with the site of a stack of sheets. The loose leaves on top were old bills, some dating from the 1950s. Beneath however, I found a faded, stained, bundle of paper tied up with string. I immediately felt that this was something interesting, but I certainly wasn't expecting what I found.
Aside from being aware that he was a pre-eminent scientist of his day, as a family we know very little about the gentleman who apparently wrote this text.
From what my mother can remember, my grandmother and great aunt did not know much of him themselves. Once, when my mother made an attempt at a family tree, my grandmother recounted a story about Harriet and herself visiting their paternal uncle in a sanatorium. She had been five when their parents and uncle's wife, Joyce, had made that strange trip. In fact it was one of her earliest memories. She recalled a feeling of great sadness. This would have been roughly 1915. At the time of writing I have been unable to track down any documentation on my great, great uncle, aside from the photograph that is on the front cover, but my investigation is ongoing. I do know that he passed away in 1917 and is buried in a family plot in a church graveyard in Norfolk, England.
Upon reading the text, my immediate thought was that this was some kind of joke. Indeed my family thought the same. Perhaps my aunt's final jape? But I really can't believe that. True, her imagination was lively, but this goes beyond anything she ever told us. To dismiss this bizarre possibility we have had the paper analysed, and it has been radiocarbon dated to the early twentieth century. Remarkable as it is, we can only conclude that this document is true, as true as it was for the man writing it in 1900.
Some of the document was badly damaged. We found woodworm at the bottom of the bureau and it seemed they had at some time made their home in the manuscript. So I took on the task of transcription, filling in the damaged parts using, like my great, great uncle before me, a `literary liberty'.
It is really impossible to quantify the implications of what is written in this book. Although my family and myself aren't at all religious, after reading and believing this manuscript, we are sure that our lives will never be the same again. Of course some will say this is a hoax, or perhaps that though there may be something veridical in it, it is simply a confused, drug-induced vision. I do, however, wonder what my great aunt and my great, great uncle's wife thought of it. I suppose we will never know, but it would not be surprising if they thought he had lost his mind.
In a further twist, I believe, although my family do not agree, that he is holding a copy of this very book in the picture on the front cover. Presenting a rather interesting paradox: could he have seen his own story in print before he'd even written it?
Finally, our simple hope in publishing the manuscript is that the message my great, great uncle left us can be espoused.
- James D Quinton, East Anglia, Great Britain, 2010.
