The Watcher by the Threshold

John Buchan

Jul 2010 · Canongate Books

About this ebook

Edited and introduced by Andrew Lownie. ‘The short story is the real form’ John Buchan This is the first ever complete collection of all Buchan’s shorter Scottish fiction. Set largely in his beloved Borders, these stories and novellas show the full range and depth of Buchan’s writing. Featuring shepherds, poachers, gamekeepers and drovers, they are worlds away from the tales of aristocratic adventure with which he is so often associated. Shot through with characters and places he returned to in his full-length fiction, the Buchan that emerges from this collection is a very different and much more complex writer than he is often held to be. ‘John Buchan was the first to realise the enormous dramatic value of adventure in familiar surroundings happening to unadventurous men.’ Graham Greene

About the author

John Buchan's adventure stories, The Thirty-Nine Steps and Greenmantle, have long held a place as classics of their kind. Only now is his historical fiction, which he himself regarded as his finest work, receiving its full due.