John Buchan

Prester John John Buchan

Nineteen-year-old David Crawfurd travels from Scotland to South Africa to seek his fortune as a store-keeper. On the voyage he encounters John Laputa, the celebrated Zulu minister, of whom he has strange memories. In his remote store David finds himself with the key to a massive uprising led by the minister, who has taken the title of the mythical priest-king, Prester John. David's courage and his understanding of this man take him to the heart of the uprising, a secret cave in the Rooirand. This is a story of lost civilizations, hidden treasures, friendship and betrayal, lions and tigers, witch doctors, and just good old-fashioned adventure. John Buchan wrote Prester John, his sixth novel, in 1910, seven years after he returned from South Africa. It was his first to reach a wide readership across the world, and it established him as the writer of the fast-paced adventures for which he is famous. John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, was a British novelist and Unionist politician who, between 1935 and 1940, served as the Governor General of Canada. He was born and primarily educated in Scotland, and further schooled in England, obtaining a degree in Literae Humaniores, and befriending a number of influential future writers while studying at the University of Oxford.