Dwight Peck's special private personal Web page

Dwight Clark Peck is a quiet, gracefully-aging gentleman who has managed so far to keep more or less out of harm's way.

He "grew up" in northern New Jersey in the United States of America, and whilst living in that country fetched up on two world record track-and-field relay teams at the University of Kansas and clutching a PhD in Renaissance Literature in Ohio. Not to mention an MLS master's degree in library and archival science in Rhode Island (and some other BAs and MAs -- eleven long years in university!). And he taught in universities, too, for quite a while, the History of Ideas of all improbable things, and 16th-century Renaissance Lit, along with lots and lots of Freshman English and Intro to Poetry, in Ohio, Oklahoma, oh where not? Uncountable late nights poring over nasty old books and microfilm readers, grubbing about amongst crumbly manuscripts in archives and public records offices in England, and rather a short bibliography to show for it in the end. Most of his research publications had to do with political propaganda and espionage in the 1580s -- a field in which no one could make a decent living even in the

1580s, let alone now. Shakespeare was his favorite subject to teach, until after a while he was embarrassed to discover that all the best bits made him want to cry.

Since (pretty unnerved by the Vietnam Thing) he moved to Switzerland 31 years ago, Swiss flag

Mr Peck has been dabbling at lots of odds and ends, but mainly playing about in the mountains. He was considered amongst his friends to be one of the better uphill afterwork nighttime skiers, inspired in the more extreme applications of telemark skis fitted with crosscountry bindings and sealskins on the bottom, with a couple of headlamps on. Getting back down was always trickier, naturally; but with his full share of broken bones he nearly always managed to do so. And lots of non-competitive snowcaving, potentially a new rage sport. And then a lot of monster running, too, over the mountains and across the glaciers and down in the wooded dales, until in the end his knees went off to join the Long Fathers, so now semi-crippled walking-wise he works at less energetic hobbies like prancing

about on snowshoes and looking for long downhills on his Scott mountainbike, called "Humvee", and his LeMond Tourmaley road bike called "Greg", depending upon the season.

ACS. Mr Peck worked for many years at the American College of Switzerland, formerly an independent US-accredited liberal arts college located in Leysin, a ski resort in the Vaudoise Alps, and as Head Librarian he built the 50,000-volume ACS library from scratch. And was Academic Dean from time to time when required. The American College went bankrupt in 1991 and lingers on only as a fond memory, though the building and the name are still being used, somewhat blasphemously, by a commercial educational fastfood chain. And his library sits up there on the mountain, with moss growing on it.

La Tour de Famelon, circa 1983

Leysin. For the nostalgic amongst us, here are some photos of Leysin village and surroundings circa 1979 and, into the bargain, mountain scenery all roundabout Leysin in the same era. Supplemented by a few more from delightful holidays in Leysin in January 2005.

YOU OLD LEYSINOUDS, YOU FROFIES, Webmaster Dan Urlich is the keeper of the flame for the Free Republic of Feydey and Leysin in general -- visit the FROF Web site, and sign in on the guestbook (http://www.frof.ch/).

The Jura. In 1992, seriously unemployed after the College's passage into History, Mr Peck sold his chalet in Leysin -- SOB! -- and moved "to the valley!", in the Geneva-Lausanne axis (to Gimel, then to Trélex, then to Bassins near Nyon). It's a comedown from the Alps to the Jura mountains, that's true. But the southwest Jura is not without its mountainy charms, and here are some heart-warming pix of Mont Tendre and La Dôle, and Pointe de Poêle Chaud next door, and a few more of the porous limestone forests surrounding them all about, to remind you that continuously good fun can be had almost wherever in this world you may be, as long as it's in Switzerland.

Ramsar. Now, Mr Peck, coming off a few years as Librarian of the American Library of Geneva, has since become an ardent conservationist, toiling long hours in the casual uniform of Communications Officer of the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971), or the "Ramsar Convention". Ramsar is the world's first global treaty for conservation and sustainable management of natural resources -- it provides the framework for national action and international cooperation in the conservation and "wise use" of wetland habitats and water resources. There are presently 158 nations that are Contracting Parties to the Convention, and its secretariat is housed with The World Conservation Union (IUCN) in Gland, Switzerland. Some 1750 wetlands round the world, over 161 million hectares' worth (1,610,000 km2), are presently covered by the Ramsar umbrella. Here's a brief pictorial history of Mr Peck's sojourn with Ramsar, and here is a link to the Ramsar Convention Web site, ca.22,500 files and images, which ought to answer all of your swamp, marsh, bog, fen, estuary, coral reef, near-shore marine, and peatland questions or make you wish you hadn't asked.

Not that bad a job, ain't it: saving the world (better than making munitions, cigarettes, or innovative fertilizers), learning something new most days, helping people out from time to time, giggling along with a lot of excellent colleagues in the Secretariat, except [...

...], and making a livable salary as well.

Here's Kid One: Alison has performed a miracle by sorting herself out after hard times and completed her PhD in astrophysics, radio astronomy to be more exact, at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, New Mexico, home of the NRAO - National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Then, having discovered a number of high-energy things way out there whilst serving a two-year post-doctoral posting at the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie in Bonn, Germany, where Mr Peck was temporarily able to see her more often, Alison went off to the Mauna Kea observatory in Hawaii (USA), as the Staff Astronomer on the Sub-Millimeter Array (SMA) project of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, part of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where it appears that she's very happy. She's been at a conference in Zermatt and has been visiting us here in Switzerland for a few weeks, early October 2003, and then again in May 2004, and in 2006 we've been at Marlowe's wedding picnic in Vermont and hiked up Mt Cube. Most recently, Al took a break from meetings in Munich and came down in mid-September 2007, and again in late April 2008.View some baby pictures, too.

Update February 2007: Alison has been appointed Deputy Project Scientist for the new ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) telescope being built by the European Southern Observatory and other consortium partners near San Pedro de Atacama (5000 metres elevation) in Chile, a giant array of 12-meter submillimetre quality antennas, with baselines of several kilometres. More details, ripped from the ESO Web site, are here.

Kid Two: Deirdre is no longer with us, but when she was, she was the greatest. We won't even try to describe what she was like. For more pix, click on the photo here.

Kid Three (left): Marlowe's the youngest, 23 years old now -- she spent her first decade in Switzerland, then lived in England for three & a half years and came to visit every other weekend throughout that time. When she was here, we went for walks in the Jura mountains, played computer games (Age of Empires, Civilization, Settlers III, AD1602, SimTower), and read P. G. Wodehouse "Jeeves" books to each other, which was a great step up from Nancy Drew. Then, alas, in November 1999, she moved with her mother to the malls of the USA -- fewer visits twice monthly!! This is a picture of Marlowe getting smooched by her Papa (left) in the mountains of Switzerland in March 2000; click on it for more photos and a little unfinished autobiography, with index . Not too long ago, Mar and her inamorato Dima visited at Christmas 2002, and she herownself in June 2003 -- in July 2004 we've been to visit her and the Dima-friend and she came along to Switzerland for Christmas 2004. And now in autumn 2007, she's graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa and, in fact, just got married, July 2006, and has been over for a visit to Switzerland in June and July 2007

Winter 2007-2008. After a bad snow winter last year - a bad snow winter. Just back from visiting Kristin in Boston and hiking all over the coast of Maine in October, we're welcoming Kristin again in late November for an excellent week of hiking all round the beautiful island of Corsica, as well as a look-in at the P'tite Auberge at the Lac de Taney for some exceptional snowshoeing and dinners. Then good snow, and Christmas in Ollon with the Doctors Durham, and some more good snowshoe explorations in early January. Then . . . then, alas . . . Pres. Bush's Global Warming kicked in with a vengeance, in western Switzerland anyway, and the Jura hiking, though beautiful as always, was not snowy. In a month-long break between two big meetings at work, Kristin came in February for a bronchitis revisit to the Lac de Tanay and a long weekend in fascinating Bergamo. Then, finally, and evidently to celebrate Easter, God kindly dumped a ton of snow on us - more fun for the long weekend in late March than you could shake a taser at - but a fortnight later, it melted. And predictably, more writhing from [...

...]. Alison, in Europe for meetings, came in from Chile in late April, and Kristin has come back for much of May, with some of that in Rome again, where I'll be joining her tomorrow. Now, loins are being girded for a reluctantly workaholic summer and the giant 10th meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties in South Korea in October-November.

Summer 2007. Exceptionally privileged. Northern Europe was all flooded and cold, and Spain and Greece were burnt nearly to a Mediterranean crisp, but in Switzerland there has never been a finer summer, if you're a fan of sunny cool days with a fresh breeze. People who love trickling with sweat lying on beaches were very badly served here, but Anti-heatists basked, with scarcely a few days above 30°C (86°F). Following on from a wandering-about hikey sort of trip to Ireland in April, it was back to work for a while, surfacing only briefly for Mercedes' PhD party in early June, until from mid-June the Social Whirl became dervishish. Marlowe, newly graduated from college in Canada, forsook her Dima for three weeks so that we could revisit some of her favorites from the old days, namely the castles of Chillon, Grandson, Gruyères, Joux, and Thun, and then Kristin neatly overlapped with her for a few days in early July -- leading on to a visit to the Lac de Salanfe with Joe and Teny and several days chasing all round Prague. Another dry spell at the coalface then, teethgrittingly waiting out a departure [...

...], and then Alison showed up from Chile in mid-September, here in Europe for a month of meetings at the ESO headquarters near Munich with just enough free time to join in some Jura hiking with the Old Dad. Kristin was meant to visit, too, in late September, but by the time we got round to booking the ticket, the best airfare from Boston to Geneva was literally twice the price from Geneva to Boston, which settled that question swiftly. So we got in a rewarding week on the coast of Maine in the USA, hiking on Mount Desert Island in Acadia National Park, and suffered through the late stages of Boston's horrific heat spell in early October for a week. Now in prospect, after a hiking-sightseeing week in Corsica with Kristin in late November, we'll settle down for a winter of lots and lots of snow!

Winter 2006-2007. The winter spent waiting around for winter. This was the winter in Switzerland when Mr Bush's Global Warming really got in amongst us, and we spent a good part of our non-working hours staring up into the sky wondering what happened to the snow. At one point, in March 2007, the Swiss scientists reported that we've had one-third of the normal snowpack -- which probably means that we're not going to be watering the front lawn this summer. Which is not so bad, as we don't have a front lawn, only a plastic lawn chair out in the parking lot. But valiantly to make up for lost snow time, Kristin came along in November and we went for a whirlwind see-all-the-sights footrace through her old neighborhoods in Rome, Italy (right), spent some quality time at the Lac de Tanay in Switzerland, and then, when she came back again in February, walked the Cinque Terre coastline near Sestri Levante in Italy. Beyond that, there's not too much to report, not counting all the workaday shenanigans in the workplace ([...

...]), but we did manage to get off for a week or so in April to northern Ireland, where we had a wonderful time and emerged more hopeful about the future of mankind. At least tentatively more hopeful.

Summer 2006. Great weather, and a marriage into the bargain. Great weather (despite two miserable weeks in July marred by Pres. Bush's Global Warming), lots of scenic excitement, old friends, lots of pretty good food and some pretty awful stuff, too. Most of all, Marlowe's wedding picnic in Vermont, USA, quite a grand reunion in the Green Mountains, not far from one of the USA's most interesting Superfund sites, and some of the best micro-brewery elixir we've had the good luck to run across, the Whistling Pig of Norwich, Vermont. But first, in April, another good long tranche of the Southwest Coast Path over a week's time in western Cornwall, and in June, exceptional views and a few mooses on hikes in Newfoundland (a fairly new part of Canada), Change Islands and Gros Morne World Heritage Site, an itinerary worth amending slightly and then recommending heartily. And Tschingellochtighorn! Don't laugh until you've tried it. A strenuous, blissful weekend with the old gang, Charlie and his friend Jodi, Joe and Teny, and Kristin at the mountain hotel of Engstligenalp with double-dinners and a good hike up the Tschingellochtig lunar landscape. And some other scenic bits and bobs. Now we're left to wondering when the snow will be coming in again.

Winter 2005-2006. Let the bon temps rouler. Winters, the more of them we've seen, get better every year. This statistical curve will not climb indefinitely, but so far it's holding well, as long as we keep up with our medications. With the

Convention's monster Conference of the Parties looming in November, we snuck away, when Kristin visited from the USA, to hang out in Dijon and Besançon and study the human carrot [right] from a safe distance. Ramsar COP9 in Uganda, blessedly, turned out to be less horrific than other COPs in the past, and we got to spend a little time wandering about the Kampala suburbs, the countryside, and Mabamba Bay, watching birdwatchers bag their first rare "shoebill" in years. Following which, in full convalescence mode, we spent some quality time with Kristin and old friends in late November in Boston and Newport, Rhode Island, following which again, Kristin took advantage of the phenomenal pre-Christmas snow in the Jura mountains to get the snowshoeing season off to a remarkable start, following which again, we settled down to a blissfully monotonous deep-snow succession of snowshoe escapades through to April, focused mainly upon sneaking up on chamois [left] and upgrading the photos on our Farms of the Jura series. Then, in mid-April, we darted off to hike on Exmoor with the Tims in Devon and spend some days in Cornwall at a 17th century B+B filling in some more sections of our long hike along the Southwest Coast Path on the installment plan. And now we await what the future may bring with mouth agape and eyes agog.

Summer 2005. Stolen moments. Once every three years the employees and hangers-on of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands put their lives on the top shelf of the linen closet and work begrudgingly round the clock preparing for the majestic Conference of the Parties (COP), with next to no summer holidays at all for some of them, or at least one of them. Last time, in 2002, we managed to get up to a little mischief, but now, as we hurtle towards COP9 in Kampala, Uganda, in November 2005, it gets harder and harder every year to remember why we're doing this. Never mind -- it's been a fun summer anyway, and soon the snow will be here and we'll look back fondly on our summer frolics. Mainly some exceptional hiking when Kristin visited in August and dragged us out for long weekends in unseasonably bad weather at fairly high altitudes with very acceptable dinners in the evenings: namely, to Vers l'Eglise near Les Diablerets, back to Iffigenalp with Joe and Teny for a walk up to the Rawilpass, rain on the glaciers at Engstligenalp, and down to the National Park of Vanoise in the French Alps. And a few other odds and ends, not even to mention an entire page devoted to our famous anthills of the Jura. Here is a

on all the scenically rewarding goings-on.

Winter 2004-2005. It's been another great winter season in our hide-out in Switzerland, with some very weird weather, like a January week of icy wind that left major ice in Nyon (left) and closed half the roads followed by the hottest March day that Switzerland has ever seen, 27°C (81°F). We've been to Cornwall again in October, made a couple of work trips to Canada and Uganda, Marlowe was able to visit for Christmas, and Kristin came to visit in November, January, February, and April, including old memories in Leysin and a few days on Lago Maggiore, so lots of walks got walked, good food got et, and laughs got laughed and now, as the snow deliquesces catastrophically all around us, we're beginning to look towards the summer with an open mind. Here's a little

that leads to all of these photographic odds and ends and more.

Summer 2004. Weather data have been recorded over the past 150 years or so (more, if you count Greenland ice cores), and they're unlikely ever to show a European summer as wonderful as this one was. Rebounding from the 40°C "canicule" in 2003, which left 35,000 Europeans dead and most other people envious -- in the Geneva area we've had the most astonishingly 23°-ish temperatures, plenty of rain, and nice brisk breezes nearly all the time. As if that were not enough to convince us to hang on for a few more years, Mr Peck was dragged off by friend Kristin to the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington, USA, where he met lots of rainforest algae, undergrowth, clear cuts, US Indians, micro-brewery beers of great distinction, a decent Seattle newspaper, and more food than anyone could shake a stick at. No wonder everyone there is so enormous -- food food everywhere, lovely Hog Heaven! Alison visited Switzerland, Kristin visited Switzerland, we went to Washington for a while, then dashed up to see Marlowe in Ottawa -- Spare a glance: you'll see Mauvoisin, Iffigenalp, Dungelpass, and our visit to North America, i.e., the Olympic National Park in Washington and then Ottawa, Canada, to see Marlowe and Dima for a few days.

Winter 2003-2004. Mostly spent working quite hard when necessary, harming no one, and getting out to play about in the foggy rain and snow whenever we won't be missed. Whilst still calming down a bit after a dash along the Devon and Cornwall coastline in October, we were settling down to a long and exhilirating succession of snowshoe explorations in wet snow and stormy skies, when All in a whoop! Kristin visited again for the Christmas season, with wet snow and stormy skies and oysters, and then again in April. Few places in the forests of the Swiss Jura did not get snowshoed in, as it turned out. Here is a succinct record of former ACS professors darting about in the snow, pampering themselves with gourmet package lunches in plastic wrap, some chamois, and Kristin's visits. And now we have no one to blame but ourselves. Click here for a.

Summer 2003. The canicule. Towards the end of a Republican T-shirty winter, when aging hikers were still bouncing a bit painfully about in the mountains and snowshoeing with friends all over the Jura shop floor, Mr D. Peck began to notice that matters were hotting up sooner than normal. Boy, did it ever! peaking at 107°F (41.5°C), Switzerland's all-time record, and that was IN THE ALPS! During that brief span, he managed to visit Kristin and Marlowe in the USA in April; welcomed Marlowe's visit in June and gawked at lots of tourist sites; welcomed Kristin's visit in July and viewed Vienna, the Gran Paradiso in Italy, and Swiss points of interest (including some at 2850 meters altitude); welcomed Alison's visit and did some more picturesque venues; and darted off to Devon and Cornwall with Kristin to sample the pubs and walk the Southwest Coast Path. Here is a brief record of the summer 2003 highlights in Peckville and the Valley of Peck.

Winter 2002-2003. As round the world some of them were trying in vain to convince the rest of us that it would be a fun idea to go 'precision'-bomb a lot of the folks down in Iraq, D.C. Peck and friends spent the fall and winter hiding out in the safest place they could think of. After Ramsar's COP8 in Valencia, Spain, and with Marlowe's and Dima's visit for Christmas and the arrival of the snow, we were able to get down to the real business of life, that is to say, having fun. Here you will see a brief synoptic overview of whatever damages may have been incurred, including some photogenic autumn hikes and a series of attention-grabbing snowshoe escapades that may be helpful to neophytes on behaviors to avoid. Here's an invitation to spend Winter 2002-3 with us briefly, in retrospect.

Summer 2002 swooped in fast, blasted by over our heads with an acrid smell, and disappeared over the horizon. Mr D. Peck, for a large number of work-related reasons, was unable to plan any holidays from 2001 right all the way through 2002, and well into the spring of 2003 for that matter. He snatched an hour or two when he could, of course, but when Mr C. Berman came to Europe in July 2002 the poor man was pretty much on his own. Nonetheless, here's a commemorative collection of events, including a walk into Italy and back, a hike up Mont Tendre with the old gang, Marlowe's visit for some camping with cows and excursions to France and Italy with friend Lisa, lots of other odds and ends. The heights and depths of human experience.

Winter 2001-2002. Winters may not be what they once were, but they're still a lot of fun. Having survived the MOOSA tour last summer, the narrator spent the northern-hemisphere winter 1) working for wetlands, 2) snowshoeing, 3) cleaning the apartment, and 4) searching for angels. The lucky chap has also been able to assemble a formidable collection of holes, photos of snowy holes rather, and you can view the holes here. If you want to peek in on Winter 2001-2 at the Peck household, so far there's no problem with that.

Summer 2001. The year of MOOSA. Summer hols have come along again, Thanks Bog! If our friends in Boston steadfastly refuse to come to visit us in Europe, well then, we'll have to go to Boston. Once in Boston . . . Films, friends, pubs, museums, etc., and very relaxing barbecues in Framingham, and then . . . What? Well, it's off to the White Mountains still again, to hike our little butts off, and after that -- THE MOOSA TOUR. Come cycle with us from Maine to Québec, and then all round Québec City itself -- we'll do the bicycles, you just do the mouse clicking, and we'll compare notes later. Gentlemen, to your marks. Get set. Go.

With apparently no end in sight yet, Dr Dwight spent the winter season 2000-2001 mainly working 14 hours a day for wetlands and trotting about the Jura mountains on snowshoes snapping wildly away with his little camera seeking new content for the series Jura farms in winter, available here. And Alison and Marlowe came to visit, and hikes were hiked, and Christmas dinner was et, and the lifestyle connoisseurs amongst you can see it here.

In the summer of 2000, Mr Peck ventured back to North America, for a week with Charles Berman and Lisa Durham in New Hampshire, another week on duty at the Millennium Wetland Event in Québec City, an unpleasant two weeks in Wisconsin, and a wind-up near Philadelphia. Tag along.

But, on the other hand, in summer 1999, Señor Dwight was back in the Swiss Alps with Profs. Charles Berman and John Joseph Pirri trotting amiably along the "Swiss Alpine Pass Route" for eight days, and then back again to Höhtürli for the elusive 9th day. You can join them briefly for some of the high points, and none of the labored breathing and blisters.

In summer 1998, Mr Peck vacated Trélex in haste and moved his books, computers, skis, and a few clothes to a new little bachelor flat in the village of Bassins, Switzerland, not far from Nyon. Want to see pix of beautiful downtown Bassins?

And, likewise in summer 1998, Dwight and Marlowe Peck went to the USA for a month -- MA, VT, NH, WI, MI, OH, PA, NY, MA. USA-heads will know how to crack that code. Here are some pix of the Mighty White Mountains of New Hampshire, in which the narrator was short-roped by Prof. C. Berman [right] over a 125km four-pass bike ride up Kancamagus, on foot up the Huntington Ravine trail, and up the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail as well, and then took a few walks with Marlowe at Kristin's along the shores of Lake Superior.

In summer 1997, Former Archivist Peck went for a walk over the High Route of the Alps [left] from Verbier to near Zermatt, accompanied by Prof Charles Berman, and ran into lots of glaciers and beautiful mountain goat-esses, and you can follow along.

Following which, likewise in 1997, Old Dad Peck accompanied daughters Alison and Marlowe for some science and culture in New Mexico, USA, darting amongst the 27 big dishes of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO, right) near Socorro, praying for rain at White Sands, and studying ancient cultures at Disney Pueblo.

Farms of the Jura: A photo series on farms of the Swiss Jura mountains in the dead of winter -- growing like Topsy, some 65 wintry farms up now, and only one taken down because of a private-property owner's concerns about increased littering on the premises. [sunsets from the Jura, January 2001 and 2002, photos right]

Holes of the Jura: The Swiss Jura, in the Mont Tendre region, is made largely of limestone and in many places has washed out in dark holes and chimneys small, medium-sized, and frequently gigantic. There's

great sport to be had in seeking them out in the snow, darting up close for a snapshot, and backpedaling frantically, giggling in triumph. Here are some preliminary results of the Grand Search for Holes, 2001 and continuing. [gazing in fascination into a hole, photo left]

Mountain photos on this Web site: An unassuming index to this Web site's photos of undramatic but nonetheless beautiful mountains in the Préalps and Jura of Switzerland and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere. Forty-odd mountains so far and still counting.

Snowshoeing in the Jura: Rudimentary lessons on how to go about enjoying this popular winter sport, and mainly on how not to.

Anthills of the Jura. The BBC cares, and maybe we all should! Here are photos of some of the most alluring anthills in western Switzerland, which tops all of Europe for its wood-ant anthills. Much more formidable ones in Uganda, though. Dig in.

Steamships of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman). The fleet of eight "Belle Epoque" lake steamers and assorted other vessels, on Lake Geneva and selected other lakes elsewhere Climb aboard.

Forest refuges of the Jura. Photos and descriptions of a bunch of little one-room huts stuck out in the forest, good to memorize in case you twist your knee someday out there whilst hiking along dreaming of your future career triumphs and not watching where you're going. Crawl in here.

Various travels: Despite exceptionally strong instincts towards gazing for long hours off the balcony at Swiss scenic vistas with a chilled bottle of beer firmly in hand, from time to time Mr Peck has been gratefully dragged away to other venues. Here's a "work in progress" of selected travels and visits since about 1980.

Physiognomy (Herr Peck's and a few others): an essay on faces and what they sometimes reveal or don't. (And Kristin's as well.)

Big story. Castle-Come-Down - faith and doubt in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. Rather a lengthy tale of nasty court politics in England in the 1570s and 1580s and, in France, espionage, murder, and general mayhem in aid of Mary Queen of Scots and/or the Spanish Armada. It's a "true story", too (right!). Illustrations included in the Web version (not in the 1.7mb PDF). Advance to the index page (no credit cards or adult authentication required).

Slightly smaller but still pretty big story. Derborence - a new translation (by Dwight) of Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz's classic tale (1934) of peasant life in the Swiss Alps in the 18th century, when the back half of the Diablerets mountains fell off and buried all of the summer high-mountain livestock grazers -- but, months later, one of them came home! And then went back! The great plan was to illustrate the story with lots of evocative photos of the place today, but for the moment the haunting Ramuzian prose will have to suffice. This is a must read for all sentimental mountaineers, nostalgic peasants, and unashamed poetical spirits who admire family values and ghostlike apparitions. Advance to the Intro page.

Quite a few more stories, some perhaps semi-true. Robert Dudley (1532?-1588), Earl of Leicester and Queen Elizabeth's long-time favorite, was the subject of scandal from the very beginnings of the Elizabethan era in England (1558-1603). Study of the black legends surrounding his life, times, and putative crimes provides insights into the political, social, religious, and administrative history of Britain and lots and lots of furtive and ribald fun. Mr Peck spent many pleasant hours pursuing these matters and writing up his results, quite a few years ago, and more recently, scanning them and posting them all here. At least all of them that can still be found under piles of NYRBs and behind the sofa cushions. Here is a menu of 16th century diatribes, libels, and screeds, parental guidance encouraged for some of them.