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Sick Heart River

by John Buchan

ISBN: 9781846970306
Imprint: Polygon
Publication Date: Jul 2007
Format: Paperback (eBook also available)
Price: £7.99
Stock Status: in stock

eBook also available at the iBookstore

‘Sick Heart River turns the adventure yarn into a spiritual quest with an authority that few have ever rivalled.’ – Evening Standard


Sick Heart River is both John Buchan’s most powerful novel and his last, completed just days before his death. It was published posthumously in 1941. Buchan’s rich descriptions of the rugged Canadian Northwest Territories are influenced by his real-life voyage down the Mackenzie River in 1937. At that time, Buchan was Governor-General of Canada.

The main character, the lawyer and politician Sir Edward Leithen – perhaps the most autobiographical of Buchan’s characters – has been diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis and has been given a year to live. A former colleague, American John S. Blenkiron, requests help to find his niece’s husband, who appears to have flown from his very successful financial career to the Canadian north. Leithen agrees to help.


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.

James Buchan, who provides an introduction to Sick Heart River, is a grandson of John Buchan and a novelist and historian in his own right.

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