Ursula Buchan, Beyond The Thirty-Nine Steps

Does the world need a new biography of John Buchan? There have been three so far: a very thin and respectful one written a few years after his 1940 death, in an atmosphere of sincere grief and hagiography. Then there was Janet Adam Smith's 1965 biography, invited and facilitated by the family, which was the … Continue reading Ursula Buchan, Beyond The Thirty-Nine Steps →

Wonder Woman, screenplay by John Buchan

I saw Wonder Woman last night, and have things on my mind (there will be SPOILERS if you read on). There were only seven people in the cinema (Tuesday night, 17.40 showing, my own private cinema), but by god the Dolby surround was loud, we needed more bodies to absorb the boom. The Themiscyra parts … Continue reading Wonder Woman, screenplay by John Buchan →

John Buchan’s Jacobites

Rebellion, or Uprising? In this Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up I’m in the middle of the British eighteenth century, looking at the '1745', otherwise known as the Jacobite Rebellion, or Uprising, depending on which side you were on. This was the second attempt by the exiled Roman Catholic monarchy of Britain to reclaim … Continue reading John Buchan’s Jacobites →

John Buchan and The Power-House

The novel of 1913 that I’m resurrecting from the Really Like This Book podcast scripts is the first modern thriller, The Power-House by John Buchan. This is often overlooked because of its far more famous younger brother, The Thirty-Nine Steps, which was published two years later in 1915. When Buchan wrote The Power-House, he was … Continue reading John Buchan and The Power-House →

Romping through the heather: John Buchan’s Castle Gay

This fine novel from 1930 about newspaper proprietors and their unexpected influences has a title that hasn’t travelled well. Be it known that the 'Gay' of the title is an invented Scottish clan-type name that probably derives from the medieval ancestry of its Westwater owners, headed by Lord Rhynns. ‘Gay’ is a place-name. Let’s get on … Continue reading Romping through the heather: John Buchan’s Castle Gay →

Broadswords in the heather: John Buchan’s John Burnet of Barns

This week in the Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up, we’re in the 17th century, in the fog of Scotland and the mud of northern Holland, in John Buchan’s early swashbuckler, John Burnet of Barns (1898). This novel was published when Buchan was just 23; it’s not his first novel, but his second, and … Continue reading Broadswords in the heather: John Buchan’s John Burnet of Barns →

Antony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda

Antony Hope's invention* of the cardboard kingdom in The Prisoner of Zenda is the subject of this week's Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up. Hope was a respectable Victorian London lawyer, but he had a secret passion for the romantic and dramatic, and wrote many novels. His most famous is The Prisoner of Zenda, from … Continue reading Antony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda →

My very own book: Novelists Against Social Change

Novelists Against Social Change: Conservative Popular Fiction, 1920-1960 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) This is my very own book, that I've been writing for what seems like forever: a long study of how John Buchan, Dornford Yates and Angela Thirkell wrote their conservatism into their best-selling fiction. It's now finally been published, with stunning cover art by Barry Rowe. … Continue reading My very own book: Novelists Against Social Change →

Jules Verne meets Conan Doyle with aliens: Philip José Farmer’s The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

The title is the second-best thing about The Other Log of Phileas Fogg. How can you resist the suggestion that Phileas Fogg kept an alternative log of his trip Around the World in Eighty Days? What else could have happened that the world didn’t know? The first best thing about the novel is the answer: … Continue reading Jules Verne meets Conan Doyle with aliens: Philip José Farmer’s The Other Log of Phileas Fogg →

Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands

The Riddle of the Sands was published in May 1903, and it has probably sold more than two million copies in its lifetime. Its author Erskine Childers was infuriated when it was described as fiction, because for him the issue of a probable German invasion by sea was real and the danger obvious. Many reviewers at … Continue reading Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands →