By James Aitchison

He was a barrister, spymaster, novelist, poet, a British Lord, and Governor-General of Canada.  His most famous book was first filmed in 1935 by Alfred Hitchcock.  In the pantheon of great British thriller writers — John le Carré, Ian Fleming, Frederick Forsyth, Len Deighton, Graham Greene and Eric Ambler — he was arguably the most influential of them all.

Born on 28 August 1875, in Perth, Scotland, Buchan was a prolific writer. His first novel was published when he was only 20.  He attended Glasgow and Oxford Universities and practised as a barrister.  In 1901 he travelled to South Africa, becoming the private secretary to the British High Commissioner and Governor of Cape Colony.  Both Scotland and South Africa would inspire and inform his fiction, especially the Scottish landscapes of his youth.  Daring escapes through the heather, spies in hot pursuit, would become his stock in trade.

Returning to England he wrote a legal book about taxation of foreign income before joining Thomas Nelson & Co, Publishers.  When the First World War began in 1914, Buchan commenced writing a history of the war for Nelson’s, a total of 24 volumes by war’s end.  One can only picture the demands on his time: attending to the daily running of a publishing house, acting as a war correspondent for The Times, working for the British Foreign Office in public relations, writing fiction, with his weekends spent writing the voluminous war history.

Confined to bed for six weeks in 1914, Buchan wrote what he called “a shocker” (in today’s parlance, it would be a “thriller”).  The Thirty-Nine Steps featured Richard Hannay, a mining engineer of Scottish blood but Rhodesia-raised.  The book begins with Hannay reflecting on the boredom of London life.  “I returned from the City about three o’clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life … the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun.  ‘Richard Hannay,’ I kept telling myself, ‘you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and you had better climb out.’” 

Within pages, a freelance secret agent is murdered in his London flat by a gang of German spies — the Black Stone — and Hannay finds himself on the run from both the spies and the police.  Hannay, the fugitive patriotic hero, escapes by train to Scotland where Buchan’s tense fast-paced narrative combines thrilling chases by car and aeroplane with rich descriptions of the terrain and weather.  Published by Blackwoods in 1915, it had sold 26,000 copies in its first six weeks and hasn’t been out of print since.  A year later, another Hannay novel — Greenmantle — followed to even greater success. 

By 1916, Buchan was Director of Information, leading Britain’s propaganda effort.  In 1918 he was head of the Department of Intelligence; like Ian Fleming, Buchan would gain first-hand knowledge of the world of espionage.  In the 1920s he served as a Member of Parliament and was appointed the first governor of the British Film Institute.

1935 would prove Buchan’s most significant year.  He was elevated to the peerage as Baron Tweedsmuir and appointed Governor-General of Canada.  Meanwhile, that same year saw the cinema release of Alfred Hitchcock’s version of The 39 Steps, starring Robert Donat as Richard Hannay.  The movie, regarded as a Hitchcock classic, brought Buchan’s work to an even greater audience.  In future years, more movies and plays would follow.

As Governor-General of Canada, Buchan strengthened Canada’s sovereignty and encouraged indigenous groups to retain their individuality.  He also bolstered a Canadian literary identity by founding the GGs (The Governor-General’s Awards for Literature).

Significantly, he formed a bond with America’s President Roosevelt and advanced Britain’s cause in the early days of World War II.  When he died in 1940, his ashes were returned to Britain for burial.

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As one critic remarked, Buchan “spanned the gap between Kipling and Fleming.”  Graham Greene said that The Thirty-Nine Steps’ pace and pursuit set the pattern for adventure writers ever since: “John Buchan was the first to realise the enormous dramatic value of adventure in familiar surroundings happening to unadventurous men.”

Buchan wrote more than 100 books, fiction and non-fiction, including biographies of Cromwell, Caesar, and Walter Scott, and his 24-volume history of the Great War.  But it is for the creation of Richard Hannay and The Thirty-Nine Steps that Buchan is remembered and honoured today.