LoveReading Says
'The Dancing Floor is one of Buchan's most unusual and surprising tales. it's a love story, a dramatic thriller and a tale of the clash between paganism and christiantity. Young Englishwoman Kore Arabin has inherited a remote Greek island Plakos from her unscrupulous father, who was reviled by the locals. The superstitious islanders who are full of wild beliefs and pagan habits, blame Kore for every minor mishap and natural disaster, and they are about to sacrifice her as a witch in the sacred ground called 'The Dancing Floor'. Sir Edward Leithen and his acquaintance Vernon Milburne must save her.
From the Introduction by Robin Hardy in The Dancing Floor:
'Buchan plucks threas from mythology and weaves a spell set on a Greek island where even the flora seems to be part of the plot: 'Rivers of narcissus and iris and anenome flooded over the crest...The ground was warm under the short herbage, and from it came the rich, clean, savour of earth quickening after its winter sleep under the spell of the sun.' We can almost smell it. Magic is in the air. Terrible, wonderful things are about to happen. John Buchan is at it again.'
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The Dancing Floor Synopsis
'Plakos is a strange place, for the tides of civilisation and progress seem to have left it high and dry. It is a relic of old days, full of wild beliefs and pagan habits.'
Young Englishwoman Kore Arabin has inherited a remote Greek island, Plakos, from her unscrupulous father, who was reviled by the locals. The superstitious islanders blame Kore for every minor mishap and natural disaster, and they are about to sacrifice her as a witch in the sacred ground called 'The Dancing Floor'. Sir Edward Leithen and his acquaintance Vernon Milburne must save her.
The Dancing Floor is one of Buchan's most intriguing novels - a love story, a dramatic thriller and a tale of the clash between paganism and Christianity.
With an introduction by Robert Hardy.
This edition is authorised by the John Buchan Society.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781846976230 |
| Publication date: |
18th August 2022 |
| Author: |
John Buchan |
| Publisher: |
Polygon an imprint of Birlinn Ltd |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
240 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Thriller and Suspense
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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About John Buchan
John Buchan led a truly extraordinary life: he was a diplomat, soldier, barrister, journalist, historian, politician, publisher, poet and novelist. He was born in Perth in 1875, the eldest son of a Free Church of Scotland minister, and educated at Hutcheson’s Grammar School in Glasgow. He graduated from Glasgow University then took a scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford. During his time there – ‘spent peacefully in an enclave like a monastery’ – he wrote two historical novels.
In 1901 he became a barrister of the Middle Temple and a private secretary to the High Commissioner for South Africa. In 1907 he married Susan Charlotte Grosvenor; they had three sons and a daughter. After spells as a war correspondent, Lloyd George’s Director of Information and a Conservative MP, Buchan – now Sir John Buchan, Baron Tweedsmuir of Elsfield - moved to Canada in 1935 where he had been appointed Governor-General.
Despite poor health throughout his life, Buchan’s literary output was remarkable – thirty novels, over sixty non-fiction books, including biographies of Sir Walter Scott and Oliver Cromwell, and seven collections of short stories. In 1928 he won the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Britain’s oldest literary prize for his biography of the Marquis of Montrose. Buchan’s distinctive thrillers – ‘shockers’ as he called them – were characterised by suspenseful atmosphere, conspiracy theories and romantic heroes, notably Richard Hannay (based on the real-life military spy William Ironside) and Sir Edward Leithen. Buchan was a favourite writer of Alfred Hitchcock, whose screen adaptation of The Thirty-Nine Steps was phenomenally successful.
John Buchan served as Governor-General of Canada until his death in 1940, the year his autobiography Memory Hold-the-door was published. His last novel Sick Heart River was published posthumously in 1941.
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