BUCHAN, John

“The charm of adventure, free will, the challenge of the unknown – all these things explain the popularity of the detective story”

Author, historian, politician, traveller – John Buchan was born in Perth, a son of the manse.  He received a bursary to go to  Glasgow University then won a scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford to study law.  Whilst there he won both College and University essay prizes and the University's prestigious Newdigate poetry prize. He was also President of the Oxford Union and went on to achieve a first in 1899.  He was called to the bar in 1901 but continued to write and to serve in public office, travelling to South Africa to serve with the F.O. Medically unfit to serve in combat, during WWI he worked as a war correspondent for The Times, went on to work for Haig at GHQ, and became Director of Information in 1917, understanding the importance of placing selective propaganda in the public domain.  If this was not enough he was also able to write and have published what is probably his most famous novel, Thirty Nine Steps, in 1915. Described as the quintessential English hero, Richard Hannay became a byword for pluck and resourcefulness under pressure, and went on to feature in further novels – notably Mr Standfast (1919)

He was astonishingly prolific, writing a novel a year, and In addition penned histories, essays and memoirs plus a wide range of biographies, including those on Montrose and Sir Walter Scott. 

In 1935 he became Lord Tweedsmuir of Elsfield, Oxfordshire, and left for Canada as the Governer-General.  He died in Ottawa in 1940 and was given a state funeral.

He was a Statesman of note, but it is as a writer of popular thrillers that he is best remembered today.  Graham Greene, in 1951, wrote that the settings, pace and pursuits in The Thirty-Nine Steps "were to be a pattern for adventure-writers ever since."

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