John Buchan

Mr. Standfast John Buchan

When Richard Hannay, the hero of The Thirty-nine Steps, is recalled by the Head of British Intelligence from the Western Front at a critical moment in the battle for France, he has little idea that his contribution to the war effort will be much more crucial than the command of his Brigade in Flanders. In his strange odyssey to unravel the most sinister of conspiracies 'to defeat the allies in the West' he travels from an idyllic manor house in the Cotswolds to a provincial Garden City where pacifism is the order of the day, through Scotland and London under attack, and thence back to the trenches, and the greatest battle of the First World War. There, amid the devastation and the squalor, he finds both love and a horrifying glimpse of chemical warfare before the thrilling dÃ(c)noument in the skies above the battlefield. John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, was a British novelist and Unionist politician who, between 1935 and 1940, served as the Governor General of Canada. He was born and primarily educated in Scotland, and further schooled in England, obtaining a degree in Literae Humaniores, and befriending a number of influential future writers while studying at the University of Oxford. After a brief career in law, Buchan began writing and his political and diplomatic career, serving as a private secretary to the colonial administrator of various colonies in South Africa, and eventually wrote propaganda for the British war effort following the outbreak of the First World War. Once back in civilian life, Buchan was elected the Member of Parliament for the Combined Scottish Universities, but spent most of his time on his writing career. He is the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps and other adventure fiction.