John Buchan 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 during the First World War, and a Unionist MP who served as Governor General of Canada. 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. By the time he left the university he had published five books. 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 novels, and wrote ten biographies and four volumes of poetry, as well as numerous articles and stories for magazines and journals. (Full list...)