Latest News:

Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps has been shortlisted for an ‘Edgar’ Award by the Mystery Writers of America. The winners will be announced on 30 April 2020. For more information, visit www.mysterywriters.org.

The paperback will be published by Bloomsbury on 5 March, and in the United States and Canada on 4 August 2020.

Forthcoming Events:

Ursula will be speaking at the following venues in the next few months:

• Sea Fever Literary Festival, Wells-next-the-Sea, 2 May Cancelled or Postponed
• Broadway Arts Festival, Broadway, Gloucestershire, 12 June Cancelled or Postponed
• Portsmouth Festivities, 15 June Cancelled or Postponed
• Chalke Valley History Festival, 25 June Cancelled or Postponed
• Berwick Literary Festival, 18 October, afternoon, on ‘Did we really Dig for Victory?’
• Richmond-on-Thames Literary Festival, November (date tbc)

“Excellent ... Ursula Buchan has balanced her grandfather’s public and literary achievements with his family life and internal tensions. He emerges as a thoroughly decent man and she as a brilliant biographer.”

Lawrence James, Standpoint

“Her biography is thoroughly researched and elegantly written.”

Kevin Jackson, The Literary Review

“Ursula Buchan combines an intimate understanding of her grandfather with a scholarly reading of the immense mass of his papers in a hugely enjoyable and rewarding biography of a man of many parts and remarkable energy. A Buchan revival is certainly due.”

Taylor Downing, History Today

“Ursula Buchan's book is fluently written, deeply researched, sharply intelligent - and affectionate.”

John Lloyd, Times Literary Supplement

“[An] exemplary, diligent biography.”

William Boyd, New Statesman

“[An] outstanding biography ... Though factual, it reads like a big, rambling Victorian novel, and takes you, as novels do, into other people's lives”

John Carey, Sunday Times

“Page-turning, buccaneering stuff”

Laura Freeman, The Times

“Excellent. [Ursula Buchan] gives us a strong sense of both the man and his milieu...She has written a good book about a good and extraordinary man who touched life at so many different points and adorned most of what he touched.”

Allan Massie, Spectator

“This fascinating biography”

Jack Watkins, Country Life

“Apart from Buchan's relentless work ethic, what shines forth from these pages is his generosity of spirit. Ursula Buchan shows a similar generosity of spirit in this wonderfully fluent biography.”

Justin Marozzi, Financial Times

“A superb new biography”

Chris Gray, Oxford Times

“John Buchan was a writer of considerable significance but he was also a man who led a remarkable public life. This magnificent biography leads us through that life with great style and understanding”

Alexander McCall Smith

“Superbly substantial”

Minoo Dinshaw, The Oldie