Leithen Stories

Four classic adventure novels starring Scottish hero Sir Edward Leithen from the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps, who “invented the modern spy novel” (New Statesman).   Sir Edward Leithen, lawyer, politician, sportsman and occasional philosopher, was probably the most autobiographical of John Buchan’s heroes. This collection of four novels, written over a span of thirty years, shows Leithen/Buchan in all his moods—from the urban menace of The Power-House in which “the thin line between civilization and barbarism” runs through London’s West End; to the Highland exhilaration of John Macnab; the twists and turns of The Dancing Floor; and Sick Heart River, where Leithen meets death and redemption in the wastes of Canada.   Buchan’s learning and practical experience took him far beyond the range of the “clubland hero” and these tales lead us to the heart of one of Scotland’s most fascinating and enigmatic writers.   “John Buchan was the first to realize the enormous dramatic value of adventure in familiar surroundings happening to unadventurous men.”—Graham Greene   “Leithen is his most autobiographical [character] . . . It’s Leithen who stars in The Power-House (serialized in 1913), the novel that kicked off Buchan’s run of ‘shockers’—as he called his thrillers and adventure stories. And it is Leithen who brings it to a close in Sick Heart River (1941). If Hannay is the man of empire, all blunt action and luck brought on by confidence, Leithen is the man of the capital, a power broker bent on doing good but also on escaping to the country at week’s end.”—The Wall Street Journal