Prester John Book

I first read about John Buchan a few years ago in an article entitled "G.A. Henty and the Tradition of Adventure Writing for Boys"
by Martin Cothran. You can read it here: (I recommend it highly!--even if you don't have boys)


Since the first reading of "The Thirty-Nine Steps" my husband and I have fallen in love with the John Buchan.

Graham Green said that "John Buchan was the first to realize the enormous dramatic value of adventure in familiar surroundings happening to unadventurous men."

It's totally true and it is so easy to identify with the characters. They don't really long for a good scrap, but they're courageous and wise when stuck into the middle of one.

Synopsis from a John Buchan website: "'Prester John' (1910) was based upon [Buchan's] experiences in South Africa. It is the story of a Scots lad, David Crawfurd, who travels to South Africa in the turn of the century seeking his fortune after his studies are interuppted by his father's death. Dark deeds and treacherous intrigues are afoot at the lonely trading post where he is assigned by his employers and these are bound up with the mysterious, ancient African Kingdom of Prester John. David stumbles on to the key to the mystery and becomes involved in the ensuing warfare."

Of course it's much more than that! I suppose that Prester John would be called "dated" today (as would many of Buchan's books, I suppose). John Buchan was very nationalistic (but not in the nasty way we think of that phrase today). He loved his country and wasn't afraid to say so. Anyway, he was also a product of his times in some ways, such as the idea that the White British Male was pretty much the bomb. However lame that may seem to us today, he really doesn't write it that way. He had a very healthy respect for all people, he just saw them in different ways than perhaps we do today.

Buchan was a Christian and wrote Christian characters who believed in grace and works. There isn't a lot of religion, per se, but it underlies the characters compositions.

"Prester John" was a very fun read. It was counted one of those schoolboy favorites way back when. We'd like to resurrect Buchan in the states, as he isn't very easy to get a hold of for decent prices. So far most of the Buchan books we've read can't really count as life-changing, but if you need thrilling, adventurous stories without a trace of garbage (in detail or creed) Buchan's a great one to go for.

Some favorite quotes:

"But behind my thoughts was one master-feeling, that Providence had given me my chance and I must make the most of it. ...I looked on the last months as a clear course which had been mapped out for me. Not for nothing had I been given a clue to the strange events which were coming. It was foreordained that I should go alone to Umvelos', and in the promptings of my own fallible heart I believed I saw the workings of Omnipotence. Such is our moral arrogance, and yet without such a belief I think that mankind would have ever been content to bide sluggishly at home."

"...God had preserved me from deadly perils, but not that I might cower in some shelter. I had a mission...I had been saved for a purpose, and unless I fulfilled my purpose I should again be lost..."

David wins the day and at the age of 19 becomes a fabulously wealthy young man...

"The wealth did not dazzle so much as it solemnized me. I had no impulse to spend any part of it in a riot of folly. It had come to me like fairy gold out of the void; it had been bought with men's blood, almost my own. ....I saw my life all lying before me; and already I had won sucess. ...I was a rich man now who could choose his career, an dmy mother need never again want for comfort. My money seemed pleasant to me, for if men won theirs by brains or industry, I had won mine by sterner methods, for I had staked against it my life. I sat alone in the railway carriage and cried with pure thankfulness..."

And by the way, he does much good with his cash:)