Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps: A Life of John Buchan

by UrsulaBuchan (Author)

• Used

  Illustrated
  2019

  $4.15

  This lively, engaging and thoughtful biography of John Buchan reveals the extraordinary life and times of the man who gave form to the modern thriller John Buchan's name is known across the world for The Thirty-Nine Steps, the iconic thriller set in the wilds of the Scottish countryside, famously adapted into a cult classic by a young Alfred Hitchcock. Yet that literary feat makes up only a fraction of the achievements of this self-made man. With unique insight, Ursula Buchan uncovers her grandfather's remarkable life story: from humble Scottish beginnings, to Oxford, where he excelled in every way before being recruited to rebuild South Africa after the Boer war. As well as being a `Man of Letters' with an intensely imaginative inner life, Buchan took his public duties seriously - he was a politician, director of wartime propaganda, a confidant of Ministers and Kings and - eventually - the first Lord Tweedsmuir. Drawing from recently uncovered family documents, Ursula Buchan's intimate, stylish and comprehensive biography brings to vivid life the man behind the achievements, and the times in which he lived.