As a wildly comic and surreal satire of every pedantry going, it could hardly be bettered, - The Independent

This seriously comic novel is one of a kind, - Sunday Herald

An entertaining comic ride into a most peculiar linguistic curiosity The Age

Volapük. An embarrassing medical condition, a Bulgarian seaside resort or a universal language invented by a German priest and in which the letter R is frowned upon?

The Volapük Language Movement flourished in the late nineteenth century, despite bitter rivalry with Esperanto and internecine feuding. In this novel, Drummond constructs a fantastic world, full of chimeras, civil disobedience, hot-air ballooning, private lunatic asylums and church organs, and the occasional Arbroath Smokie.

It s April 1891 and time for the Annual General Meeting of the Edinburgh Society for the Propagation of a Universal Language. The General Secretary, Mr Justice, a militant champion of Volapük, is locked in battle with Dr Bosman, a shameless apologist for Esperanto. When the Annual General Meeting does not deliver the expected victory for Mr Justice, he decides to kidnap Dr Bosman and teach him a lesson a grammatical one in the conducive setting of the Mavisbank Asylum.