‘Buchan knew that you can’t buck the consequences of your actions, and that your life is what you make of it. Perhaps his peculiarly Scottish combination of Romanticism and Calvinism – daring living and high thinking – is due to return to fashion.’ – The Independent Magazine
In 1925, John Buchan published his second most famous novel, John MacNab; three high-flying men – a barrister, a cabinet minister and a banker – are suffering from boredom. They concoct a plan to cure it. They inform three Scottish estates that they will poach from each two stags and a salmon in a given time. They sign collectively as ‘John McNab’ and await the responses. This novel is a light interlude within the Leithen Stories series – an evocative look at the hunting, shooting and fishing lifestyle in Highland Scotland.
One of Alfred Hitchcock’s favourite writers, John Buchan was a Scottish diplomat, barrister, journalist, historian, poet and novelist. He published nearly 30 novels and seven collections of short stories. He was born in Perth, an eldest son, and studied at Glasgow and Oxford. In 1901 he became a barrister of the Middle Temple and a private secretary to the High Commissioner for South Africa. In 1907 he married Susan Charlotte Grosvenor and they subsequently had four children. After spells as a war correspondent, Lloyd George’s Director of Information and Conservative MP, Buchan moved to Canada in 1935. He served as Governor General there until his death in 1940.
Andrew Greig, who provides an introduction to John MacNab, is a prize-winning writer whose novel The Return of John MacNab (Faber 2002) is being filmed for the BBC.
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