John Buchan on the History of Literature podcast.

The History of Literature podcast sits down with Ursula Buchan to discuss the multifaceted life and work of her grandfather, John Buchan (The Thirty-Nine Steps, etc.).

McFarland bk sale (incl Companions to Mystery Fiction).

It's a good time to buy volumes in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series that I edit; there's a 40-percent off sale on all McFarland books running through November 27, 2023 (use coupon code HOLIDAY23).

The Thirty-Nine Steps on WWI podcast.

Oh! What a Lovely Podcast (a podcast that focuses on World War I) discusses John Buchan's ever-popular thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), including burning questions such as why you should never let Richard Hannay drive.

John Buchan in Oxford.

John Buchan. NYPL

The Oxford Mail discusses John Buchan's years in Oxfordshire, where he produced, among other works, the Richard Hannay novels The Three Hostages (1924) and The Island of Sheep (1936).

J. S. Fletcher celebrates a centenary.

New HarperCollins edition of Fletcher's
The Middle Temple Murder

In the Oxford Times, Christopher Gray celebrates the centenary of the publication of The Middle Temple Murder (1919) by Yorkshire-born Joseph Smith Fletcher, better known as J. S. Fletcher (1863–1935). Says Gray, "The novel put me very much in mind of John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps." In the novel (read by presidential mystery fan Woodrow Wilson), a journalist and a Scotland Yard inspector see something more in a violent death than a robbery gone wrong.

More on Fletcher (who apparently also was a friend of T. S. Stribling)

Coming in June: A new biography of John Buchan.

Due out in June from Bloomsbury is Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps: A Life of John Buchan by writer Ursula Buchan (John's granddaughter), who wishes to show the many sides of the Scottish author, barrister, civil servant, diplomat, journalist, politician, and creator of thriller hero Richard Hannay and barrister Edward Leithen.

The 39 Steps (1959).

Taina Elg and Kenneth More in The 39 Steps (1959)

In the second film version of The 39 Steps, Kenneth More takes on the role of John Buchan's game-hunter hero who becomes embroiled in espionage.

BBC Radio 4: "The Buchan Tradition."

In "The Buchan Tradition," BBC Radio 4 talks to two writer grandchildren of John Buchan--James and Ursula Buchan--as well as Buchan companion author Kate Macdonald to discuss works such as The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle, and Mr. Standfast; Buchan heroes Richard Hannay and Edward Leithen; and the style of storytelling established by Buchan that can be seen in works by later authors such as Geoffrey Household (Rogue Male). The program includes a clip of Buchan speaking.

War, Buchan, and The Thirty-Nine Steps.

As part of BBC Radio 3's programming on the centenary of World War I, the program Free Thinking convenes John Buchan's biographer Andrew Lownie and Buchan companion author Kate Macdonald to talk about the place of his war experience in The Thirty-Nine Steps and the popularity of the novel with servicemen.

Rose Macaulay's Mystery at Geneva (1922).

"They must be found, gentlemen. Alive or (unthinkable thought) dead, they must be found. The Assembly must do nothing else until this sinister mystery is unravelled. We must employ detectives. We must follow every clue."

Miss Longfellow said, "My! Isn't it all quite too terribly sinister!" (Rose Macaulay, Mystery at Geneva 110)

Rose Macaulay by W. W. Seaton
Shadowland Mar-Aug 1923

In catching up with U-Ghent professor Kate Macdonald's podcast Why I Really Like This Book, I was intrigued by the episode on Dame Rose Macaulay's Mystery at Geneva (1922). I was familiar with Macaulay (1881–1958) as a satirical novelist (for example, The Towers of Trebizond) and an inspiration to younger Somervillians Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby, but did not know about this mystery sidelight that features Macaulay's feminist commentary and a journalist investigating disappearing delegates from the League of Nations. "A mystery without distinction," sniffed the Bookman. "[... E]veryone will enjoy Miss Macaulay's running fire of lively and humorous comment upon the human comedy and the fools we mortals are," countered N. P. Dawson in Shadowland. "A fascinating novel," adds Kate (whose specialties include thriller writers John Buchan and Dornford Yates).

TLS on the model for a Buchan villain.

David Warner as
Appleton in
The 39 Steps (1978)

The Times Literary Supplement's Michael Caines discusses a new book on Sir Edgar Speyer, considered a model for a villain in John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915).

Trent's Last Case on Why I Really Like This Bk.

E. C. Bentley, from
The Bookman (1913)

The latest episode of Kate Macdonald's podcast Why I Really Like This Book is on E.C. Bentley's Trent's Last Case (1913), which Macdonald calls "a cracking good mystery." Macdonald is the author of the John Buchan companion in the series I edit for McFarland.

In Search of Scotland: Buchan, McDermid, et al.

Arthur Conan Doyle, n.d.
Library of Congress,
Prints & Photographs Div.

University of Otago's "In Search of Scotland" online exhibition includes John Buchan, Arthur Conan Doyle, Val McDermid, and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

New podcast: Why I Really Like This Book.

University of Ghent professor Kate Macdonald, author of the John Buchan companion that I edited, has started Why I Really Like This Book, a podcast that highlights neglected works. Two recent episodes focus on thriller author Dornford Yates (whose work has been reprinted by House of Stratus) and Erskine Childers's Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone work The Riddle of the Sands (new edition available from Penguin; Macdonald introduced an earlier edition).
(Hat tip to Neglected Books)

John Buchan on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Richard Hannay
(Robert Donat) receives
an unpleasant surprise
in The 39 Steps
(dir Alfred Hitchcock,
1935)

This week on BBC Radio 4 Extra the intrepid Richard Hannay grapples with German spies in The Thirty-Nine Steps and Greenmantle. Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for up to a week after broadcast.

Preliminary info, McBain/Hunter companion (ed. Foxwell).

McFarland has posted some preliminary details on Ed McBain/ Evan Hunter: A Literary Companion by Erin E. MacDonald, volume 3 in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series that I edit (volume 1 on John Buchan; volume 2 on E. X., aka Elizabeth, Ferrars). It is tentatively scheduled for publication in spring/summer 2012. In this work MacDonald, who wrote her dissertation on McBain, provides comprehensive coverage of the multifaceted career of this author/screenwriter and MWA Grand Master who was a pioneer of the police procedural.

Update, 7 May 2012: McBain/Hunter companion now available. 

Now out: E. X. Ferrars companion (ed. Foxwell).

Just out is E. X. Ferrars: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Gina Macdonald with Elizabeth Sanders. This is volume 2 in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series that I edit (volume 1 is on John Buchan; the Scots will be pleased that both volumes feature writers of Scottish heritage).

Detection Club member and British Crime Writers Assn cofounder Ferrars published her first book, Turn Single, in 1932, and the last, A Choice of Evils, in 1995. Her sleuths include physiotherapist Virginia Freer and her estranged, often feckless husband Felix and retired professor Andrew Basnett (who often poignantly grapples with the effects of aging). Some of her books are still in print with Langtail Press and Doubleday, and Doug Greene of Crippen and Landru plans a collection of her short stories. Very helpful with the book was Peter Mactaggart, Ferrars's nephew and literary executor, who provided the cover photo, manuscript excerpts (including one from an unpublished novel), and valuable insights on Ferrars's life. Readers may like the handy table that lists Ferrars's methods of murder and the works in which they appear.

George C. Scott, left, and
Angela Thornton in E. X. Ferrars's
"We Haven't Seen Her Lately,"
  Kraft Mystery Theatre
NBC, 20 Aug 1958

One fascinating aspect was her duel in print with sci-fi writer John Wyndham over the merits of mystery fiction vs. those of sci-fi.

Another intriguing discovery was "We Haven't Seen Her Lately," the 1958 Kraft Mystery Theatre production of Ferrars's Always Say Die (see photo), in which a woman investigates her aunt's disappearance amid a slew of shady characters.

Shortly before his death, distinguished author-critic H. R. F. Keating, who reviewed Ferrars's Frog in the Throat favorably in the Times, kindly provided a blurb for the back cover. Sadly, Macdonald (coauthor, Scott Turow: A Critical Companion and Shaman or Sherlock? The Native American Detective; author, Robert Ludlum: A Critical Companion) died in September 2010 of leukemia—she worked on this book as she was undergoing medical treatment. Her dedication to this work was inspirational.

John Buchan this week on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

This week on BBC Radio 4 Extra, a dying Edward Leithen takes up his final mission in John Buchan's last and perhaps most poignant novel, Sick Heart River (1941). Go here for the schedule; episodes usually can be heard online for a week after broadcast.

Buchan redux.

Happy to see that John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps, first published in 1915, hit the NPR Top 100 "Killer Thrillers" list at no. 51. Some books never go out of style, thankfully.

And Kate Macdonald's John Buchan: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction (edited by me) racked up another laudatory review, this time in ELT [English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920]:  "Macdonald has produced a first-class work of scholarship and a first-class popular guide to the fiction of a remarkable writer..."  But ever since the super-selective Jon L. Breen called it "a very impressive book,"  I've been feeling pretty chuffed.

"Buchan and Modernity."

On the Great War blog, George Simmers reports on the "Buchan and the Idea of Modernity" conference held at University of London on July 10, which included discussions of the Richard Hannay novels Mr. Standfast (1919) and The Three Hostages (1924) and Buchan as a Scottish writer.  (Go here to see the conference program)

About the image: John Buchan, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.