Writers' portraits - John Buchan

    Sir John Buchan, 1st. Baron Tweedsmuir (1875-1940), bust by Thomas John Clapperton,

15th. Governor General of Canada, photographic portrait (1937) by Yousuf Karsh.

    Although John Buchan is famous for his adventure novels such as The 39 Steps and Greenmantle, a friend who publishes his work rates Witch Wood (Buchan's own favourite, apparently) as one of his best and says it would make a great subject for a book group discussion. I can't comment as I've still not read him at all, but though we're told not to judge a book by its cover, and by extension, perhaps, an author by his looks, that noble profile and air of seriousness would certainly draw me to the man's works.

    I've been looking for a recent biography of John Buchan - in vain, it seems - but he does have an entry in John Sutherland's Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives, a book I have my eye on. Diplomat, journalist, lawyer, politician, novelist, biographer ... quite enough for this lesser mortal to hold him in awe. "It's a great life, if you don't weaken," he wrote; I see no sign of weakness in that face.