Folio Archives 393: Stories by John Buchan 2008

Stories by John Buchan 2008

This is a delightful collection of 18 short stories that are arranged chronologically and cover the period from the end of the Victorian era to the Roaring 20s with a significant stopover in World War One.

The topics vary significantly from the occult to the prosaic, and from the Salvation Army to seafaring adventure, but they are all interesting and without any plot overlap between them. They vary in length from nine to 41 pages in length.

There is a 13 page introduction by Giles Foden who selected the stories, and twelve monochrome illustrations and a colour frontispiece by Nick Hardcastle. The illustrations are bound-in and always appear opposite the text to which they relate.

The xxi +358 page book is a solid squat volume that measures 21.2x14.4x4.2cm. in its plain red slipcase. The endpapers are dark red and the book is bound in grey cloth blocked on the cover with a black, red and white picture by Hardcastle.

The stories in the book are:-
A Captain of Salvation.
A Journey of Little Profit.
Politics and the Man-Fly.
Streams of Water in the South.
The Watcher by the Threshold.
Fountainblue.
The Grove of Ashtaroth.
Space.
'Divus' Johnston.
Basilissa.
Fullcircle.
The Loathly Opposite.
Ships to Tarshish.
Tendebant Manus.
The Last Crusade.
Sing a Song of Sixpence.
The Wind in the Portico.
The Strange Adventures of Mr Andrew Hawthorn.

The Folio Society has published three other books by John Buchan: The Adventures of Richard Hannay; Greenmantle; and The Thirty-Nine Steps and The Power-House



















































An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.

What do you think of the stories? Seems like this particular production was only printed by FS and there's lots on the secondary market incredibly cheap.

>2 anthonyfawkes:
All the stories are delightfully readable.

A very good writer.

I've been fascinated lately by the diverging fates of Buchan and Erskine Childers... two gentlemen that wrote dashing adventure stories warning of the central powers military threat before WWI and then ended up in completely different ends.

>3 wcarter:

Luckily not triggered to buy it--as I already have a copy. But am triggered to actually read it. My TBR pile looms threateningly above me.

Also, you note above that FS published a Buchan volume titled "The Adventures of Richard Hannay." That's actually a five-volume set with the following books: The Thirty-Nine Steps, Green Mantle, Mr. Standfast, The Three Hostages and The Island of Sheep. Maybe I've triggered you for a change.