Reviews
One of Scotland's most enduringly popular writers
The Scotsman
Buchan knew that you can't buck the consequences of your actions, and that your life is what you make of it. Perhaps his peculiarly Scottish combination of Romanticism and Calvinism - daring living and high thinking - is due to return to fashion
The Independent Magazine
About the Book
David Sempill is being torn apart. Young and idealistic, his loyalty to his King conflicts with his Covenanting sympathies, which are, in turn, tested by the brutality he witnesses towards Montrose's beaten army. When black magic is uncovered in the ancient Witch Wood, as a man of God he must fight it, but his love for the beautiful, pagan Katrine and the religious extremism of the time puts him at the centre of a deadly spiral.
Buchan's favourite novel - and an inspiration for the young C.S. Lewis - is a terrifying portrait of a cruel and intolerant age.
With an introduction by Allan Massie.
This edition is authorised by the John Buchan Society.
The Author
John Buchan
John Buchan was a Scottish diplomat, barrister, journalist, historian, poet and novelist, born in Perth in 1875. He published nearly 30 novels including most notably The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) which is widely regarded as the original spy novel. After spells as a war correspondent, Lloyd George’s Director of Information and Conservative MP, Buchan moved to Canada in 1935. He served as Governor General there until his death in 1940.
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