ABSTRACT
John Buchan was born in Scotland in 1875 to a Presbyterian family with strong farming connections, and le Glasgow University for Oxford in 1895. He took a First in Greats (classical studies) in 1899, while supporting himself throughout his studies as a writer and a publisher’s reader. He tried the Imperial Civil Service, the Bar and journalism, but settled in 1907 into publishing and his lifelong happy marriage, and continued to publish his own ction, though without wild success. His interest in actively engaging himself in politics was tested in 1911 when he failed to gain a seat in the House of Commons, but by 1914 he was in the thick of wartime publishing, and was developing his skills as a historian, a novelist and as a government propagandist. Buchan emerged from the war famous, with a growing family (his fourth child was born in 1918), and a house in Oxfordshire, but also a sick man and much bereaved. e 1920s were spent in constant writing and publishing, and he won the coveted seat in Parliament. Honours and formal appointments followed, and in 1935 he was ennobled as Baron Tweedsmuir to become Governor-General of Canada. His ow of writing began to slow, and in 1940 he died a er su ering a brain haemorrhage. His most well-known novel, Th e Th irty-Nine Steps (1915) has never been out of print, and he published over 100 books in his lifetime, a substantial proportion of them non- ction.
