John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (1875–1940), was a Scottish novelist, historian, biographer and editor. Outside the field of literature he was, at various times, a barrister, a publisher, a lieutenant colonel in the Intelligence Corps, the Director of Information—reporting directly to prime minister David Lloyd George—during the First World War and a Unionist MP who served as Governor General of Canada, the fifteenth to hold the office since Canadian Confederation.

Born in Perth, Scotland, Buchan was admitted to the University of Glasgow in 1892 to study classics; during his first year at university he edited the works of Francis Bacon, which were published in 1894. The following year he was awarded a scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford; shortly after his arrival he also published his first novel, Sir Quixote of the Moors, which he dedicated to Gilbert Murray, his university tutor. By the time he left the university he had published five books, including Scholar-Gipsies, his first work of non-fiction.

Much of Buchan's non-fiction mirrored his circumstances: his time in South Africa resulted in The African Colony, and the First World War led to a series of books about the war in general, and the Scottish and South African forces in particular. He interspersed his non-fiction with further novels, and also wrote ten biographies and four volumes of poetry, as well as numerous articles and stories for magazines and journals. During the war he wrote The Thirty-Nine Steps, the novel which has been adapted for film and television more than any of his other work, (film versions in 1935, 1959 and 1978 and a 2008 television version).

Editor

Buchan was the general editor of the Teaching of History series, published by T. Nelson Publishers between 1928 and 1930. In 1900 he was also a member of the editorial board of The Spectator.

Works edited by Buchan

Title	Year of first publication	Author	First edition publisher (London, unless otherwise stated)	Notes	Ref.
Essays and Apothegms of Francis Lord Bacon	1894	Francis Bacon	Walter Scott Publishing Co
Musa Piscatrix	1896	Various	John Lane
The Compleat Angler	1901	Izaak Walton	Methuen Publishing
The Long Road to Victory	1920	Various	T. Nelson Publishers
Miscellanies: Literary and Historical	1921	Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery	Hodder & Stoughton
Great Hours in Sport	1921	Various	T. Nelson Publishers
The Nations of Today	1923–24	Various	Hodder & Stoughton	Six unnumbered volumes
A History of English Literature	1923	Various	T. Nelson Publishers	Abridged and published in 1937 as A Shorter History of English Literature.
The Northern Muse: An Anthology of Scots Vernacular Poetry	1924	Various	Hodder & Stoughton
Modern Short Stories	1926	Various	T. Nelson Publishers
Essays and Studies	1926	Members of the English Association	Oxford University Press, Oxford
South Africa	1927	Various	British Empire Educational Press
A General Survey of British History	1928	Various	T. Nelson Publishers	Eleven volumes
The Poetry of Neil Munro	1931	Neil Munro	William Blackwood & Sons

Novels