Tag: john buchan

#ReadJB2020 Buchan of the Month: Introducing…The Free Fishers by John Buchan

whatcathyreadnext

9781846970658The Free Fishers was published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton in June 1934 and in the US by The Riverside Press on 31st July 1934. It had first appeared in serial form in Chamber’s Journal between January and July 1934. My own copy is from January 1936. Buchan’s historical fiction was never as commercially successful as his “shockers” although the combined sales of the Hodder & Stoughton and Nelson editions of The Free Fishers totalled 100,000 up to 1960 and the Penguin paperback edition added another 21,000.

The last historical novel Buchan wrote, The Free Fishers is set in the Regency era at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. The story takes its hero Antony Lammas, a young Professor of Divinity, from the coast of Fife, to the moors of Northumberland and the fens of East Anglia. John Buchan’s first biographer, Janet Adam Smith summarises the plot as “the rescue of a young man from a black-hearted fanatic”. She notes that the appearance of Prime Minister Spencer Percival “adds colour” but although describing the book as lively enough she finds it rather short on suspense.

Buchan scholar David Daniell takes a somewhat different view. He admires the book’s “speed and zest” and the fact the exuberance of the action does not overwhelm the plot. One particular scene in which the heroine is first glimpsed, he sees as evidence of Buchan’s “fine, assured touch”. Ursula Buchan, John Buchan’s granddaughter, concurs describing The Free Fishers as ‘a rollicking, exuberant story”. In her biography of her grandfather, Beyond The Thirty-Nine Steps: A Life of John Buchan, she writes, “It is meant as a high compliment to say that this is a Georgette Heyer novel, but written by a man.”

Andrew Lownie sees in the book many of the ingredients of the contemporary shocker, especially its villain, Julian Cranmer, described variously as “the most dangerous man alive on earth” and “an immense perverted genius”. Sounds good to me so look out for my review of The Free Fishers later this month.

Sources:

Janet Adam Smith, John Buchan: A Biography (OUP, 1985 [1965])
Ursula Buchan, Beyond The Thirty-Nine Steps: A Life of John Buchan (Bloomsbury, 2019)
David Daniell, The Interpreter’s House: A Critical Assessment of John Buchan (Nelson, 1975)
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)

Buchan of the Month 2020

#BookReview The Magic Walking Stick by John Buchan #ReadJB2020

whatcathyreadnext



About the Book

A young boy, Bill, buys a walking stick from a roadside peddler. He discovers that it’s a magic stick that will take the owner to anywhere he wishes. Adventures ensue…

My Review

My Buchan of the Month for September was The Magic Walking Stick, one of the few books John Buchan wrote for children. It was published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton on 24th October 1932. You can read my earlier blog post introducing the book here.

The central idea of a magic walking stick which can transport its possessor anywhere they wish is a charming one. However, Buchan rather complicates matters by introducing the concept that there are actually two magic walking sticks – one called Beauty and the other Bands – and Bill doesn’t know which one he possesses. Beauty is “for gallivanting about the earth for your amusement” and Bands for things like “battles and rescues and escapes” and if either is used for the wrong purpose serious consequences will follow.

Having acquired the walking stick from a peddler, young Bill sets off on a series of adventures. The best of these include arranging a surprise Christmas feast for a group of villagers and the rescue from the desert of Bill’s adventurous uncle. Some of the episodes I thought were a rather strange choice of subject matter for children, such as Bill’s visit to a gruesome elephants’ graveyard. Bill’s obvious enjoyment of hunting and shooting seemed a little out of place too as did his choice of a rifle as a suitable present for a boy of a similar age to himself. The boy in question is Prince Anatole, heir to the throne of Gracia, whose accession is threatened by a group of republicans. Bill’s attempts to rescue Anatole and deal with his enemies take up most of the latter part of the book.

Buchan has a rather ambitious notion of a child’s vocabulary. Phrases such as ‘an aureole of virtue’ or ‘a vivacious colloquy’ perplexed even me and I reckon I’m well above the target age group for the book. I think the book would be more successful if he had used simpler language and confined Bill’s adventures to innocent mischief rather than political intrigue.

October’s Buchan of the Month is The Free Fishers.

About the Author

John Buchan (1875 – 1940) was an author, poet, lawyer, publisher, journalist, war correspondent, Member of Parliament, University Chancellor, keen angler and family man.  He was ennobled and, as Lord Tweedsmuir, became Governor-General of Canada.  In this role, he signed Canada’s entry into the Second World War.   Nowadays he is probably best known – maybe only known – as the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps.  However, in his lifetime he published over one hundred books: fiction, poetry, short stories, biographies, memoirs and history.

You can find out more about John Buchan, his life and literary output by visiting The John Buchan Society website.

  • The Magic Walking Stick John Buchan