John Buchan papers (Ms.Buchan)

Biographical note

John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, was born in Scotland in 1875. Displaying literary talent at an early age, he won a scholarship to Oxford where he graduated with a First Class in Humane Letters in 1899. He was called to the Bar in 1901, but soon left his legal practice to serve as a private secretary under Lord Milner in South Africa during the Boer War.

Buchan returned to his legal career in 1903. By 1907 he again gravitated to a more congenial vocation, this time as a partial partner of, and editor for, Thomas Nelson and Sons Publishers. His prolific writing in his early period tended toward romantic adventure stories, novels, and some poetry. Buchan is perhaps best known for his 1915 novel Thirty-nine steps, later made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock (1935).

World War I brought Buchan a commission in Intelligence. Later in the conflict he showed marked administrative ability while serving at the British Department of Information. His writing now took a more historical turn. In addition to his multi-volume history of the war, his fiction also reflected his wartime experiences. He also moved into biography, successfully treating such diverse subjects as Julius Caesar, Cromwell, Sir Walter Scott, and the Marquis of Montrose.

In 1927 he was elected to Parliament as Conservative member for the Scottish universities. Eight years later came elevation to the peerage and appointment as Governor General of Canada. A popular and active Governor General, he still found some time for writing in the nonfiction vein. Buchan died in 1940.