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.^[1][2][3]

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.^[4] 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.^[5] By the time he left the university he had published five books,^[1] including Scholar-Gipsies, his first work of non-fiction.^[2][6]

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.^[7] 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.^[5] 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).^[8]

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.^[9]