„The Magic Walking Stick” is a children’s short story by John Buchan. Our hero is a teenage boy who buys a walking stick from a beggar – a magic walking stick that allows the boy to visit many places at his command... It is a fantastical story about a pair of magical walking sticks; one that will cease to function if it is used for any practical purpose, and another that will cease to function if it isn’t. Unfortunately, our protagonist doesn’t know which one he possesses. ...
When Sir Edward Leithen leaves London to spend Whitsuntide as a guest at Flambard, he has no idea of the extraordinary sequence of events about to unfold. Among the collection of fellow guests, some of whom he knows and some he doesn’t, is the extraordinary mind of Professor Moe, a scientist who decides to select some of the houseguests as subjects for his latest experiment. He declares that he can make sure they can see into the future, and the people he chooses – for vari...
„Sick Heart River” is the fifth book in the Edward Leithen series. This is Buchan’s last novel, about a man who is dying, and it must reflect Buchan’s own efforts to come to terms with his looming demise."Sick Heart River” finds Leithen now in his late fifties facing a terminal diagnosis of turberculosis. Leithen has enjoyed a dazzling career as eminent barrister, member of Parliament, Cabinet minister, and attorney-general but with only months left to live, he leaves it al...
South Africa, 1900. After his father dies, nineteen-year-old David Crawfurd is sent off to South Africa to earn his living as a storekeeper in the back of beyond. A strange encounter on the journey suggests that dark deeds and treacherous intrigues are afoot – all bound up with the mysterious primeval kingdom of Prester John. Laputa is a charismatic leader of an incipient native uprising, secretly preaching the incendiary creed of „Africa for the Africans,” and proclaiming ...
Edward Leithen is a young British lawyer who learns that one of his Oxford contemporaries, Charles Pitt-Heron, has just disappeared. Leithen learns from Pitt-Heron’s wife that he has been forced to flee. But a series of strange events that follow Pitt-Heron’s disappearance convinces Leithen that he is dealing with a sinister secret society. His suspicions begin to center on a wealthy, well-known, and intelligent businessman, who reveals himself to Leithen as an ardent anarc...
We wonder that so great a man as Abraham Lincoln should spring from humble people – but who knows what his more distant ancestry might have been? In a series of dramatic chapters, Mr. Buchan tells what he imagines to have been the ancestry of Lincoln. „The Path Of The King” is a series of short vignettes, loosely connected, starting in Scotland before the Normans arrived and involving the people who where in conflict with their Scandinavian cousins. It ends in America with ...
Vernon Milbourne, orphaned since childhood and haunted by a recurring dream, is friends with the protective lawyer and MP Sir Edward Leithen. An Aegean cruise takes them to the mysterious island of Plakos, where Vernon is fascinated by the island’s myths. Local superstitions turn to menace as Vernon’s encounter with a beautiful woman results in obsession and adventure. „The Dancing Floor” centres on a young English woman, Kore Arabin, who inherits a house on a remote Greek ...
