LoveReading Says
Set during the Napoleonic Wars, The Free Fishers is classic Buchan and his last historical novel. It's a fast-paced tale of treason, espionage and romance. You'll smile at the story and the old-fashioned dialogue at times but thoroughly enjoy the pace of the story, the straightforwardness of the characters - villains, heroes - and the dramatic varierty of their experiences. As a historian and a novelist he lovingly creates the reality of the time interwined with the intrigue and motives of the characters that make up this excellent novel.
From the Introduction by Douglas Hurd in The Free Fishers:
'In The Free Fishers John Buchan brought together the gifts and tastes which struggled for primacy in his own life. He was a Scot who loved England, an academic who admired dramatic action, a Conservative with a sympathy for radicalism, a man of conventional habits who was fascinated by secret societies. One such society was that of the Free Fishers. This gathering of good-hearted smugglers gives the novel its name, but they lurk in the background as the
story unfolds.'
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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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