John Buchan (1875-1940), Scottish writer and statesman, born in Perth. An active politician, he wrote in his spare time, producing History of the War (24 vols., 1915-1919), Sir Walter Scott (1932), and nearly 50 other books. His worldwide reputation, however, rests on his exciting adventure-mystery novels involving the character Richard Hannay, especially Prester John (1910) and The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935. Buchan was elected to the House of Commons in 1927; in 1935 King George V raised him to the peerage and appointed him governor-general of Canada. His affection for Canada is evinced in the novel Sick Heart River (1941). Buchan's autobiography Memory Hold-the-Door was published in 1940.