The Physic Garden (25 page)

Some of this story is based on truth. There was a gardener in Glasgow called William Lang. There was a lecturer in botany at the old college of Glasgow University whose name was Thomas Brown, and the celebrated anatomist Professor James Jeffray did indeed ask him to undertake the botanical lectures in his stead. It is clear from existing correspondence that William Lang and Thomas Brown, who were not very far apart in years, struck up a friendship. It is clear that Thomas valued the work William did in collecting plant specimens for him. Later, when William found himself struggling to cope with a polluted garden and the necessities of providing for a widowed mother and younger siblings, Thomas Brown defended him from the complaints of Faculty, as far as he could. The book which so shocked William is all too real as is the old book about gardening. I have included a select bibliography of the books and websites I used in my research, in case any reader might be interested in the historical details. For the rest, although I hope it is a vivid recreation of the time and place, it is entirely fictional.

I would like to thank my family and friends for all their encouragement and understanding as ever but especially Michael Malone and Cally Phillips. Many thanks are also due to all at Saraband, but especially Sara Hunt, to my editor Ali Moore, as well as to The Society of Authors for years of advice and support. Finally, a special mention must go to all the ‘Authors Electric', best of online friends and bloggers.

Catherine Czerkawska is a Scottish-based novelist and
playwright
. She graduated from Edinburgh University with a degree in Mediaeval Studies followed by a Masters in Folk Life Studies from the University of Leeds. She has written many plays for the stage and for BBC Radio and for television, and has published eight novels, historical and contemporary. Her short stories have been published in many literary magazines and anthologies and as ebook collections, most recently by Hearst Magazines UK. She has also written non-fiction in the form of articles and books and has reviewed professionally for newspapers and magazines.
Wormwood
, her play about the Chernobyl disaster, was produced at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre to critical acclaim in 1997, while her novel
The Curiosity Cabinet
was shortlisted for the Dundee Book Prize in 2005.

Catherine has taught creative writing for the Arvon Foundation and spent four years as Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of the West of Scotland. She is currently serving on the committee of the Society of Authors in Scotland. When not writing, she collects and deals in the antique textiles that often find their way into her fiction.

F
ICTION

The Curiosity Cabinet

Bird of Passage

The Amber Heart

Ice Dancing

A Quiet Afternoon in the Museum of Torture

Catherine Czerkawska: Short Stories

N
ON
-F
ICTION

God’s Islanders

P
LAYS

Wormwood

The Price of a Fish Supper

Quartz

Burns on the Solway

Th
e Secret Commonwealth