Book description
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 Buchan's favourite of all his novels, "Witch Wood"
deals with the hypocrisy that can lie beneath god-fearing
respectability. The book is set in the terrifying times of the first
half of the seventeenth century when the Church of Scotland unleashed
a wave of cruelty and intolerance. Minister Sempill witnesses devil
worship in the 'Witch Wood' and is persecuted. It comes with an
introduction by Allan Massie.
One of Alfred Hitchcock's favourite writers, John Buchan was a
Scottish diplomat, barrister, journalist, historian, poet and novelist.
He published nearly 30 novels and seven collections of short stories. He
was born in Perth, an eldest son, and studied at Glasgow and Oxford. In
1901 he became a barrister of the Middle Temple and a private secretary
to the High Commissioner for South Africa. In 1907 he married Susan
Charlotte Grosvenor and they subsequently had four children. 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.
