Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps

by Ursula Buchan

  27Quoted in Ursula Buchan, ‘An Instinct to Please: The writings of Susan Buchan’, The John Buchan Journal, no. 14, spring 1995, p. 6.

  28Hilda Grenfell to JB, 8 August 1926, QUA, 2110, box 4.

  29From George Herbert’s poem ‘Prayer 1.’

  30According to Susie in BBC’s Times Remembered, broadcast 11 November 1972.

  31G. M. Trevelyan to JB, 30 June 1926, QUA, 2110, box 4.

  32He died in October 1940. As much as is known about Tom Buchan is to be found in ‘Thomas Henderson Buchan: the last bushranger?’ by Rev. Edwin R. Lee, in The John Buchan Journal, no. 21, autumn 1999, pp. 2–13.

  33Letter from Nigel Napier, published in The John Buchan Journal, no. 11, spring 1992, p. 23.

  34Quoted in John Buchan, Sir Walter Scott, Cassell, London, 1932, p. 90.

  35George Graham to George Brown, 4 August 1920, University of Edinburgh Special Collections, Thomas Nelson Collection, Coll-25, box 125.

  36Buchan, Sir Walter Scott, p. 239.

  37Quoted in Margaret Newbolt, ed., Later Life and Letters of Sir Henry Newbolt, Faber and Faber, London, 1942, p. 285.

  38Ibid., p. 340.

  39John Buchan, A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys, Thomas Nelson, Edinburgh, 1925, p. v.

  40JB to Ian Nelson, 6 January 1923, UESC, Thomas Nelson Collection, Gen. 1728/B/11/2.

  41Ian Nelson to JB, 8 January 1923, UESC, Nelson Collection, Gen. 1728/B/11/4x.

  42JB to Ian Nelson, 9 January, 1923, UESC, Nelson Collection, Gen. 1728/B/11/5x.

  43JB to Ian Nelson, 24 January 1923, UESC, Nelson Collection, Gen. 1728/B/11/15x.

  44Ian Nelson to JB, 30 January 1923, UESC, Nelson Collection, Gen. 1728/B/11/17x.

  45JB to Ian Nelson, 1 February 1923, UESC, Nelson Collection, Gen. 1728/B/11/18x.

  46Ian Nelson to JB, 4 July 1923, UESC, Nelson Collection, Gen. 1728/B/11/141c.

  47JB to Ian Nelson, 16 July 1923, UESC Nelson Collection, Gen. 1728/B/11/145x.

  48JB to the Earl of Rosebery, 2 November 1920, QUA, 2110, box 13.

  49JB to the Earl of Rosebery, 13 January 1922, QUA, 2110, box 13.

  50G. M. Trevelyan to JB, 27 February 1921, QUA, 2110, box 3.

  51‘I had poor luck at Glen Etive – got up to a stag after a long stalk and found the cartridges didn’t fit the rifle!’ JB to George Brown, 24 August 1920, UESC, Thomas Nelson Collection, Gen. 1728/ B/9/105.

  52John Buchan, ‘Montrose and Leadership’ in Men and Deeds, Peter Davies, London, 1935, p. 278.

  53John Buchan, Huntingtower, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1922, chapter XVI.

  54John Buchan, ed., The Northern Muse, Thomas Nelson, Edinburgh, 1924, p. xix.

  55Ibid., pp. xxix–xxx.

  56Ibid., p. 452.

  57Ian Brown and Alan Riach, eds, in The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century Scottish Literature, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2009, p. 57.

  58Quoted in Hugh Macmillan, A Man of Law’s Tale, Macmillan, London, 1952, p. 242.

  59Thomas Hardy to JB, 21 November 1921, John Buchan Museum collection.

  60JB to Thomas Hardy, 2 June 1922, John Buchan Museum collection.

  61Buchan, Memory Hold-the-Door, p. 197.

  62John Buchan, ‘The most difficult form of fiction’, The Listener, 16 January 1929.

  63Buchan, Sir Walter Scott, pp. 130–1.

  64Quoted in ‘A Mis-Rated Author?’, in M. R. Ridley, Second Thoughts, Dent, London, 1965, p. 15.

  65JB to Alice Fairfax-Lucy, 27 March 1939, private collection.

  66Arthur Balfour to JB, 16 May 1912, QUA, 2110, box 2.

  67J. R. B. Hart to Hodder and Stoughton, 1 December 1919, QUA, 2110, box 3.

  68John Buchan, The Three Hostages, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1924, Dedication.

  69Ibid., chapter 1.

  70Catherine Carswell in Tweedsmuir, ed., John Buchan by his Wife and Friends, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1947, p. 160.

  71Violet Markham, Friendship’s Harvest, Reinhardt, London, 1956, pp. 125–6.

  72Sir Brian Fairfax-Lucy, undated, h/w memoir of JB, private collection.

  73Quoted in Adam Smith, John Buchan, p. 244.

  74Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King (MKD), 28 May 1919, Bibliothèque et Archives / Library and Archives Canada (BAC/LAC), MG26-J13, 6994.

  75MKD, 13 September 1924, BAC/LAC, MG26-J13, 8919.

  76C. Gray, Mrs King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King, Viking, London, 1997, p. 287, quoted by Victoria Wilcox in ‘John Buchan’s Canadian Prime Minister’, The John Buchan Journal, no. 49, 2016, p. 27.

  77MKD, 14 September 1924, BAC/LAC, MG26-J13, 8921.

  78Ferris Greenslet, Under the Bridge, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA, 1943, p. 158.

  79JB to Walter Buchan, 18 September 1924, NLS, Acc. 1162/79.

  80Greenslet, Under the Bridge, pp. 202–3.

  81Ibid., p. 203.

  82Greenslet, Under the Bridge, p. 202.

  83Milton Graduates Bulletin, 1922.

  84John Buchan, Homilies and Recreations, Thomas Nelson, Edinburgh, 1926, pp. 152–3.

  85Ibid., p. 158.

  86Greenslet, Under the Bridge, p. 205.

  87Quoted in Jeffery Williams, Byng of Vimy: General and Governor General, Leo Cooper, 1983, p. 277.

  88John Buchan, The King’s Grace, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1935, p. 289.

  89Reproduced in The John Buchan Journal, no. 34, spring 2006, p. 5.

  90John Buchan, John Macnab, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1925, chapter VIII.

  91Lord Tweedsmuir, Always a Countryman, Robert Hale, London, 1953, pp. 104–5.

  92Buchan, Memory Hold-The-Door, pp. 196–7.

  93T. E. Lawrence to JB, 21 December 1928, NLS, Acc. 11627/51.

  8 Elsfield and London, 1927–1935

  1Quoted in ‘John Buchan and Parliament’ by Lord Stewartby, The John Buchan Journal, no. 31, autumn 2004, p. 12.

  2Hansard House of Commons (HC) Debate, 6 July 1927, vol. 208, col. 1316.

  3Ibid., col. 1315.

  4JB to Helen Buchan, 7 July 1927, QUA, 2110, box 4.

  5Ibid.

  6JB to Henry Newbolt, 8 July 1927, Brown University Archive, John Buchan, Manuscripts & Correspondence.

  7James Johnston, Westminster Voices, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1928, pp. 250–1.

  8The Spectator, 15 July 1927, p. 8.

  9Hansard HC Debate, 15 December 1927, vol. 211, cc 2615–19.

  10Hansard HC Debate, 24 November 1932, vol. 272, cc 259–67.

  11Hansard HC Debate, 27 May 1932, vol. 266, col. 741.

  12Hansard HC Debate, 22 February 1933, vol. 274, cc 1848–51.

  13John Buchan, ‘Conservatism and Progress’, The Spectator, 23 November 1929.

  14John Buchan, The Morning Post, 31 December 1929.

  15John Buchan, The Runagates Club, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1928, Preface.

  16Preface addressed to the President of the United States, F. D. Roosevelt, by Alexander Woollcott in ‘Proofs of Holy Writ’ by Rudyard Kipling, Doubleday, Doran and Co., NY, 1942.

  17Alice Buchan, A Scrap Screen, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1979, p. 147.

  18JB to Alice Fairfax-Lucy, n.d. 1938, private collection. Although he was never to make a living as a writer, as his father did, William Buchan (1916–2008) published half a dozen novels, as well as an elegant memoir of his father, and a ‘fragment of autobiography’, The Rags of Time, in which he described the enchantment of his childhood and the discontent of his youth. See Bibliography.

  19William Buchan, The Rags of Time, Ashford, Buchan and Enright, Southampton, 1990, p. 127.

  20Janet Adam Smith, John Buchan: A Biography, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1965, p. 225.

  21John Buchan, Memory Hold-the-Door, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1940, p. 221.

  22Susan Tweedsmuir, ed., John Buchan by his Wife and Friends, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1947, p. 175.

  23Buchan, Memory Hold-the-Door, p. 213.

  24Ibid., pp. 214–15.


  25Ibid., pp. 212–13.

  26Ibid., p. 216.

  27T. E. Lawrence to JB, 19 May 1925, QUA, 2110, box 4.

  28T. E. Lawrence to JB, 5 July 1925, QUA, 2110, box 4.

  29T. E. Lawrence to JB, 21 December 1928, NLS, Acc. 11627/51.

  30T. E. Lawrence to JB, 22 August 1931, NLS, Acc. 11627/51.

  31John Buchan, The Blanket of the Dark, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1931, chapter I.

  32Quoted in Andrew Lownie, The Presbyterian Cavalier, Constable, London, 1995, p. 226.

  33Stewartby, ‘John Buchan and Parliament’, The John Buchan Journal, no. 31, p. 15.

  34Pilgrim Trust, Ninth Annual Report, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1939, p. 13.

  35The Sunday News, n.d., quoted by Juanita Kruse in John Buchan and the Idea of Empire: Popular Literature and Political Ideology, Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, NY, 1989, p. 139.

  36Conversation between Janet Adam Smith and Lord Davidson, 5 March 1963, NLS, Acc. 11164/4.

  37John Buchan, The Graphic, 26 February 1927 pp. 294–5.

  38Quoted in Thomas Jones, A Diary with Letters 1931–1950, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1954, pp. 42–3.

  39Ibid.

  40JB to Stanley Baldwin, 4 October 1932, QUA, 2110, box 6.

  41JB to Leo Amery, 16 May 1936, Leopold Amery Papers, Churchill Archives Centre, AMEL 2/1/26.

  42Buchan, Memory Hold-the-Door, pp. 238–9.

  43JB to Lord Beaverbrook, 5 January 1932, NLS, Acc. 7006.

  44Hansard HC Debate, 24 November 1932, vol. 272, cc 261–6.

  45John Buchan, The Three Hostages, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1924, chapter IV.

  46John Buchan, Sir Walter Scott, Cassell, London, 1932, p. 111.

  47Ibid., pp. 16–17.

  48Ibid., p. 170.

  49Ibid., p. 43.

  50Tweedsmuir, ed., John Buchan by his Wife and Friends, p. 16.

  51JB to Susie, 26 October 1932, NLS, Acc. 6975/15.

  52JB to Susie, 31 May 1932, NLS, Acc. 6975/15.

  53See Harry Defries, Conservative Party Attitudes to Jews 1900–1950, Routledge, London, 2001.

  54Allan Massie, ‘In the Shadow of Empire’, in The John Buchan Journal, no. 42, p. 22.

  55Owen Dudley Edwards, ‘John Buchan: Novelist, Publisher and Politician’, in A. Reid and B. D. Osbourne, eds, Discovering Scottish Writers, Scottish Library Association and Scottish Cultural Press, Edinburgh, 1997, p. 16.

  56JB to Susie, 16 March 1932, QUA, 2110, box 5.

  57The Jewish Chronicle, 4 May 1934, p. 28.

  58Christopher Harvie, The Centre of Things: Political Fiction in Britain from Disraeli to the Present, Unwin Hyman, London, 1991, p. 170, footnote.

  59Robert Louis Stevenson, Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, Seeley, Jackson and Halliday, London, 1879, chapter 1.

  60The Times, 24 May 1933, p. 11.

  61Quoted by Adam Smith, John Buchan, p. 364.

  62Violet Markham, Friendship’s Harvest, Reinhardt, London, 1956, p. 123.

  63JB to Sir Alexander Grant, 3 July 1933, private collection.

  64The Times, 23 May 1934, p. 7.

  65Buchan, Memory Hold-the-Door, p. 197.

  66John Buchan, Oliver Cromwell, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1934, book I, chapter IV.

  67Ibid., book I, chapter I.

  68Ibid., book IV, chapter V.

  69Quoted in Adam Smith, John Buchan, p. 331.

  70Ibid., p. 367.

  71JB to Johnnie Buchan, 22 January 1935, NLS, Acc. 11627/10.

  72François Truffaut, Hitchcock by Truffaut, Simon and Schuster, London, 1967, p. 102.

  73JB to Johnnie Buchan, 12 February 1935, NLS, Acc. 11627/10.

  74John Buchan, The King’s Grace 1910–1935, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1935, pp. 227–8.

  75JB to Johnnie Buchan, 19 March 1935, NLS, Acc. 11627/10.

  76JB to Susie Buchan, 3 July 1934, QUA, 2110, box 6.

  77John Buchan, The Spectator, 6 July 1901.

  78Quoted in Adam Smith, John Buchan, p. 368.

  79Tweedsmuir, ed., John Buchan by his Wife and Friends, p. 146.

  80JB to Susie, 19 March 1935, NLS, Acc. 6975/15.

  81JB to Johnnie Buchan, 26 February 1935, NLS, Acc. 11627/10.

  82JB to Johnnie Buchan, 19 February 1935, NLS, Acc. 11627/10.

  83John Buchan, Greenmantle, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1916, chapter I.

  84Helen Buchan to JB, 24 March 1935, NLS, Acc. 11164/20.

  85Quoted in Professor Keith Neilson, ‘An excellent conning-tower: John Buchan on the fringes of diplomacy’, in On the Fringes of Diplomacy: Influences on British Foreign Policy, 1800–1945, ed. John Fisher and Antony Best, Ashgate, Farnham, 2011, p. 249.

  86JB to Johnnie Buchan, 26 March 1935, NLS, Acc. 11627/10.

  87Adam Smith, John Buchan, p. 370.

  88JB to Susie, 28 March 1935, NLS, Acc. 6542/14.

  89Quoted in Adam Smith, John Buchan, p. 372.

  90T. E. Lawrence to JB, 1 April 1935, NLS, Acc. 11627/51.

  91JB to Johnnie Buchan, 6 May 1935, NLS, Acc. 11627/10.

  92‘Beverley Baxter’s London Letter’, 15 March 1940, Maclean’s Magazine, Toronto.

  93Alan Lascelles to JB, 27 May 1935, QUA, 2110, box 7.

  94Alan Lascelles to JB, 20 April 1935, QUA, 2110, box 7.

  95Alan Lascelles to JB, 9 May 1935, QUA, 2110, box 7.

  96JB to Johnnie Buchan, 5 March 1935, NLS, 11627/10.

  97Buchan, The Rags of Time, Ashford, Buchan and Enright, Southampton, 1990, pp. 174–6.

  98Helen Buchan to JB, 10 July 1935, NLS, Acc. 11164/20.

  99JB to Johnnie Buchan, 11 June 1935, NLS, Acc. 11627/10.

  100Nigel Nicolson, ed. The Sickle Side of the Moon: Letters of Virginia Woolf 1932–1935, Hogarth Press, London, 1979, pp. 410–11.

  101Helen Buchan to JB, 5 August 1935, NLS, Acc. 11164/20.

  102Helen Buchan to JB, 8 August 1935, NLS, Acc. 11164/20.

  103Helen Buchan to JB, 27 August 1935, NLS, Acc. 11164/20.

  104JB to Helen Buchan, 18 October 1935, NLS, Acc. 6975/15.

  9 Canada, 1935–1937

  1JB to Helen Buchan, 5 November 1935, NLS, Acc. 11627/9.

  2Yousuf Karsh, Faces of Destiny, Ziff-Davis, Chicago, IL, 1946, pp. 146–7.

  3Quoted in Duff Hart-Davis, ed., In Royal Service: Letters and Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles 1920–1936, Vol. II, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1989, p. 128.

  4Quoted in The John Buchan Journal, no. 9, winter 1989, p. 3.

  5JB to Walter Buchan, 27 December 1935, NLS, Acc. 11627/79.

  6John Buchan, Memory Hold-the-Door, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1940, pp. 240–1.

  7JB to Charles Dick, 3 February 1936, QUA, 2110, box 13.

  8Susie to Walter Buchan, 18 December, 1939, NLS, Acc. 11627/90.

  9JB to Walter Buchan, 9 March 1936, NLS, Acc. 11627/79.

  10Shuldham Redfern to Sir Clive Wigram, 13 March 1936, private collection.

  11William Deacon to Ellen Elliott, 8 May 1940, quoted by Professor Andrew David Irvine in The John Buchan Journal, no. 49, p. 29.

  12John Buchan, Canadian Occasions, Musson, Toronto, 1940, p. 241.

  13Joanne Larocque-Poirier, contribution to a round-table discussion, hosted by Queen’s University Archives and held on 21 October 2004 at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.

  14Anna Desmarais, ‘Lord Tweedsmuir and the Search for Identity’, Ottawa Citizen, 20 March 2017.

  15JB to Sir Henry Newbolt, 31 March 1936, Brown University Archives, John Buchan, Manuscripts & Correspondence.

  16The Scotsman, 13 February 1940.

  17Beatrice Spencer-Smith to Penelope Butler, 28 June 1936, ZKZ/05/02 /11/02/06, Archive of the Graham family of Norton Conyers, North Yorkshire County Record Office.

  18Beatrice Spencer-Smith to Penelope Butler, 18 July 1936, ZKZ/05/ 02/11/02/07, Graham Papers, North Yorkshire County Record Office.

  19JB to King Edward VIII, 5 August 1936, Royal Archives, PS/PSO/GVI/C/048/017.

 
20Rod and Gun, December 1936.

  21Toronto Globe, 27 August 1936.

  22Quoted in Janet Adam Smith, John Buchan: A Biography, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1965, p. 396.

  23Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King (MKD), 4 September 1936, Bibliothèque et Archives / Library and Archives, Canada. MG26-J13, 17172.

  24JB to Helen Buchan, 4 September 1936, NLS, Acc. 11627/9.

  25Susan Tweedsmuir, ed., John Buchan by his Wife and Friends, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1947, pp. 227–8.

  26JB to Helen Buchan, 13 September 1936, NLS, Acc. 11627/9.

  27Mrs Marion W. DeBoice, The John Buchan Journal, no. 6, autumn 1986, p. 32.

  28JB to Helen Buchan, 10 September 1936, NLS, Acc. 11627/9.

  29Ibid.

  30Quoted in Peter Henshaw, ‘John Buchan and the British Imperial Origins of Canadian Multiculturalism’, in Canadas of the Mind: The Making and Unmaking of Canadian Nationalisms in the Twentieth Century, eds. N. Hillmer and A. Chapnick, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal and Kingston, 2007, p. 191.

  31Adam Smith, John Buchan, pp. 391–2.

  32John Buchan, Canadian Occasions, p. 29.

  33JB to Mackenzie King, 29 September 1936, QUA, 2110, box 8.

  34Captain John Boyle to Lady Trenchard, 5 October 1936, private collection.

  35JB to Mackenzie King, 29 September 1936, QUA, 2110, box 8.

  36The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres to JB, 3 November 1936, QUA, 2110, box 8.

  37Ramsay MacDonald to JB, 7 December 1936, QUA, 2110, box 8.

  38JB to Walter Buchan, 17 December 1936, NLS, Acc. 11627/79.

  39Susie to JB, 30 October 1936, NLS, Acc. 11627/6.

  40JB to Sir Alexander Hardinge, 27 October 1936, QUA, 2110, box 7.

  41JB to Stanley Baldwin, 9 November 1936, QUA, 2110, box 7.

  42Susie to JB, 16 November 1936, NLS, Acc. 11627/6.

  43Sir Alexander Hardinge to JB, 16 November 1936, QUA, 2110, box 7.

  44Susie to JB, 4 December 1936, NLS, Acc. 11627/6.

  45JB to Susie, 1 December 1936, NLS, Acc. 6975/15.

  46JB to Helen Buchan, 7 December 1936, NLS, Acc. 11627/9.

  47JB to Susie, 10 December 1936, QUA, 2110, box 8.

  48JB to Helen Buchan, 17 December 1936, NLS, Acc. 11627/9.

  49JB to Stanley Baldwin, 3 February 1937, Cambridge University Library MS Baldwin, 122/181–3.

  50Undated cartoon by Shuldham Redfern, QUA, 2110, box 28.

  51JB, ‘Private notes on Washington visit’, 8 April 1937, QUA, 2110, box 12.