My Buchan of the Month for April is A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys. It was published in the UK by Thomas Nelson & Sons in September 1922 and in the US by Houghton Mifflin the following year. My copy (pictured) is a second impression dated December 1922.
John Buchan had initially joined Nelson as chief literary adviser on the invitation of his old friend from Oxford University, Tommy Nelson (sadly later killed in the First World War). Buchan was subsequently appointed a director when Nelson became a limited company in 1915. Although Buchan’s principal UK publisher from 1916 onwards was Hodder & Stoughton, he allowed Nelson to publish cheap editions of his novels. Up until 1929, when he resigned from the board on the grounds of ill health, he also wrote or contributed to thirteen books for Nelson. These included several books aimed at young boys and usually published for the Christmas market. A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys is one of two collections of adventures he wrote for Nelson. (The other is The Last Secrets, next month’s Buchan of the Month.)
A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys is, as the title suggests, a collection of twelve famous escapes or hurried journeys from history including Charles II’s escape after the Battle of Worcester, Marie Antoinette’s flight to Varennes and Winston Churchill’s adventures during the Boer War (memorably dramatized in the film Young Winston). Four years after its publication, A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys became a school set book.
The preface to the book is interesting in that it contains Buchan’s thoughts on the term ‘Romance’. He writes, “I take it that it means in the widest sense that which affects the mind with a sense of wonder – the surprises of life, fights against odds, weak things confounding strong, beauty and courage flowering in unlikely places.”
Look out for my review of the book later this month.
Sources:
Janet Adam Smith, John Buchan: A Biography (OUP, 1985 [1965])
Kenneth Hillier and Michael Ross, The First Editions of John Buchan: A Collector’s Illustrated Biography (Avonworld, 2008)
Andrew Lownie, John Buchan: The Presbyterian Cavalier (Constable, 1995)
