John Buchan

John Buchan was born in York Place, Perth, Scotland, as the eldest son of Rev. John Buchan and Helen Buchan. He studied at the University of Glasgow and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he had an outstanding career, winning many prizes. In 1901 he became a barrister of the Middle Temple and a private secretary to the High Commissioner for South Africa, Lord Milner (1901-03).

Prester John (1910) was based on his South African experiences. After his father's death our young hero sets off to make his fortune in South Africa. He gets tangled up in an African tribal uprising and the strange encounter and rumours he hears along his journey make him suspect that his destination may not be as predictable as he has supposed. Set at the turn of the last century, this is a real adventure story. Prester John.

After returning to London, Buchan specialized in tax law and continued to write. In 1906 Buchan started to work for the publisher Thomas Nelson and Sons. He revitalized publication of pocket editions of great literature and virtually edited The Spectator. In 1907 he married Susan Charlotte Grosvenor; they had three sons and one daughter. During World War I Buchan was a war correspondent before joining the army. While ill in bed in 1914 during the first months of the war, he wrote The Thirty-Nine Steps.

Richard Hannay's ennui comes to an abrupt end when a murder is committed in his flat. Only a few days before the dead man had revealed to him an assassination plot which would have terrible consequences for international peace. The Thirty-Nine Steps (Penguin Classics).

John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, was Governor General of Canada from 1935 until his death in 1940. A man of action and prodigious energy with a great sense of adventure, he was equally a man of contemplation and imagination. Buchan assumed a wide variety of roles throughout his life, writer, administrator, politician, outdoorsman, traveller and promoter of literature, to name a few. John Buchan: The Presbyterian Cavalier.