Despite poor health throughout his life, Buchan’s literary output was remarkable – thirty novels, over sixty non-fiction books, including biographies of Sir Walter Scott and Oliver Cromwell, and seven collections of short stories. In 1928 he won the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Britain’s oldest literary prize for his biography of the Marquis of Montrose. Buchan’s distinctive thrillers – ‘shockers’ as he called them – were characterised by suspenseful atmosphere, conspiracy theories and romantic heroes, notably Richard Hannay (based on the real-life military spy William Ironside) and Sir Edward Leithen. Buchan was a favourite writer of Alfred Hitchcock, whose screen adaptation of The Thirty-Nine Steps was phenomenally successful.

John Buchan served as Governor-General of Canada until his death in 1940, the year his autobiography Memory Hold-the-door was published. His last novel Sick Heart River was published posthumously in 1941.

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Other writers on John Buchan's books...

'John Buchan was a Scot who loved England, an academic who admired dramatic action, a Conservative with a sympathy for radacalism, a man of conventional habits who was fascinated by secret societies.  In his novels he lovingly creates the context with the skill of a pasionate historian brought up on Sir Walter Scott.  But Buchan is in love not just with history but with the changing face of the English and Scottish landscape and fascinated by the motive of those who risk their lives and reputations for a cause'.' From the Introduction to The Free Fishers by Douglas Hurd

'Buchan's key characters, however dashing and improbably multi-talented, were always drawn from experience. When Buchan writes of winter crossings of the Alps, stirring up revolution in the Balkans, using a trick of the wind to mis-direct deer, giving a hustings speech as a nervous Tory candidate (a recurrent scene), the burdens of high office and dyspepsia, crawling through Highland estates with a ghillie and a gun, teasing salmon with a dry-fly, he had either done it himself or knew well people who had.

This gives his writing authority, passsion and conviction, however improbable the tale. And though the social and political attitudes of his times have vanished, Buchan's writing still reads well for his model was Stevenson, not Scott. The prose remains clear, stripped and yet stirring, combining pace, reflection and uncluttered, cheerful narration. From the Introduction to John MacNab by Andrew Greig

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