 First edition 1910 | |
| Author | John Buchan |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Thriller |
| Set in | Scotland, South Africa |
| Publisher | T Nelson & Sons [1] |
Publication date | 1910 [1] |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 376 [1] |
Prester John is a 1910 adventure novel by the Scottish author John Buchan. It tells the story of the young Scotsman David Crawfurd and his adventures in South Africa, where a native uprising under the charismatic black minister John Laputa is tied to the medieval legend of Prester John.
The novel's narrator, David Crawfurd, grows up in the Scottish seaside town of Kirkcaple where, as a boy, he first encounters the Reverend John Laputa, a powerfully eloquent black minister of the kirk. One Sunday, Crawfurd and his friends disturb Laputa performing some sort of ritual around a fire on a deserted beach. Angered, Laputa chases the boys but they escape.
When Crawfurd is nineteen, his father dies and he is forced to break off his studies in Edinburgh to earn a living. His uncle finds a post for him as assistant storekeeper in the remote South African village of Blaauwildebeestefontein. On the passage to South Africa he meets Wardlaw, a fellow Scot who is travelling to the same place to take up a position as schoolmaster. The Reverend Laputa is also on board, and is seen in covert conversation with a villainous-looking Portuguese man called Henriques. Suspicious, Crawfurd does not identify himself.
The storekeeper at Blaauwildebeestefontein to whom Crawfurd is to act as assistant, Peter Japp, is a drunkard who is involved in illegal diamond trading. Laputa and Henriques visit the store, and Crawfurd tries to overhear their conversation.
Wardlaw warns Crawfurd of what he believes to be a planned rising of the native tribes of the region, including the Zulu and Swazi peoples, led by Laputa. Captain James Arcoll, intelligence agent and local head of the colonial forces, provides more details. Laputa's skill as a preacher has inspired many tribes across the region and, funded by extensive illegal diamond trading, he has invoked the legend of Prester John to position himself as the man who will lead the forthcoming rising against colonial rule.
Using information from the overheard conversation, Crawfurd infiltrates the cave where the tribal leaders are gathering and witnesses Laputa wearing the 'Great Snake' – the priceless and sacred ruby necklet of Prester John which legitimises his leadership. Laputa makes a powerful speech to launch the uprising. Crawfurd is captured, but escapes during an ambush and seizes the necklet from the hands of Henriques who is trying to steal it for himself. After an all-night chase, Laputa's men eventually recapture Crawfurd, but not before he hides the necklet in a ravine.
Arriving at Laputa's headquarters, Crawfurd appears to be facing imminent death, but saves himself by offering Laputa his knowledge of the necklet's location in exchange for his life. Laputa, who needs the Great Snake in order to convince his followers, goes alone with Crawfurd to search for it. In the ravine, Crawfurd narrowly escapes once more, and steals Laputa's horse to take him to Arcoll's headquarters.
With Laputa now on foot and separated from his people, Arcoll's forces are easily able to quell the leaderless uprising. Meanwhile, Crawfurd returns to the cave and finds the treacherous Henriques dead outside, having been strangled by Laputa. Entering, Crawfurd finds Laputa, who by now knows that all his plans have failed. Laputa destroys a rock bridge that serves as the cave's only entrance, and then commits suicide by jumping into an underground river chasm. Crawfurd makes a daring escape by climbing a dangerous cascade.
Crawfurd rejoins Arcoll, and is instrumental in bringing about the disarmament of the local tribes and the subsequent peace. With Arcoll's help he is rewarded with a large portion of Laputa's treasure that had been hidden in the cave, and he returns to Scotland to resume his studies a rich man.
Prester John was Buchan's sixth published novel, and the first to reach a wide readership, establishing him as a writer of fast-paced adventures in exotic locales. He drew the background from his two-year stint in South Africa (1901–1903) as political private secretary to Lord Milner, High Commissioner for Southern Africa, in what came to be known as Milner's Young Men or Milner's Kindergarten. It was there that he gained a feeling for the man of action and the sense of adventure, as well as practical, political training. [2]
A 1920 silent film Prester John, [3] based on the novel, was shot and produced in South Africa by African Film Productions. [4]
John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir was a Scottish novelist, historian, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation.
The Thirty-Nine Steps is a 1915 adventure novel by the Scottish author John Buchan, first published by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh. It was serialized in All-Story Weekly issues of 5 and 12 June 1915, and in Blackwood's Magazine between July and September 1915, before being published in book form in October of that year. It is the first of five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a knack for getting himself out of tricky situations.
Prester John was a legendary Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Nestorian patriarch and king who was said to rule over a Christian nation lost amid the pagans and Muslims in the Orient. The accounts were often embellished with various tropes of medieval popular fantasy, depicting Prester John as a descendant of the Three Magi, ruling a kingdom full of riches, marvels, and strange creatures.
Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, nicknamed the Fox, was a Scottish Jacobite and Chief of Clan Fraser of Lovat, known for his feuding and changes of allegiance.
Inspector James Japp is a fictional character who appears in several of Agatha Christie's novels featuring Hercule Poirot.
Major-General Sir Richard Hannay, KCB, OBE, DSO, is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist John Buchan and further made popular by the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film The 39 Steps, very loosely based on Buchan's 1915 novel of the same name. In his autobiography, Memory Hold-the-Door, Buchan suggests that the character is based, in part, on Edmund Ironside, from Edinburgh, a spy during the Second Boer War, and a British Army field marshal and CIGS.
Poirot Investigates is a short story collection written by English author Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by The Bodley Head in March 1924. In the eleven stories, famed eccentric detective Hercule Poirot solves a variety of mysteries involving greed, jealousy, and revenge. The American version of this book, published by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1925, featured a further three stories. The UK first edition featured an illustration of Poirot on the dust jacket by W. Smithson Broadhead, reprinted from the 21 March 1923 issue of The Sketch magazine.
The Island of Sheep is a 1936 novel by the Scottish author John Buchan, the last of his novels to focus on his characters Richard Hannay and Sandy Arbuthnot. It was published in the United States under the title The Man from the Norlands.
John Macnab is a 1925 adventure novel by the Scottish author John Buchan.
The Courts of the Morning is a 1929 adventure novel by John Buchan, featuring his character Sandy Arbuthnot. The prologue is narrated by Richard Hannay, so the novel is sometimes included in Buchan's Hannay series. The action is set in Olifa, a fictional country on the west coast of South America.
Reverend Henry Cadwallader Adams was a 19th-century English cleric, schoolmaster and writer of children's novels.
Midwinter: Certain travellers in old England is a 1923 historical novel by the Scottish author John Buchan. It is set during the Jacobite rising of 1745, when an army of Scottish highlanders seeking to place Charles Stuart onto the English throne advanced into England as far South as Derby. The Prince, otherwise known as "Bonnie Prince Charlie", the grandson of the ousted King James II, required men and money from English Jacobite sympathisers, and the novel imagines why those were not forthcoming from landowners in the Western counties and Wales. It purports to sheds light on Samuel Johnson's previously unknown activities during that period.
The Wizard is a novel by Henry Rider Haggard, first published by Longmans, Green, and Co., in 1896. The Wizard is one of the many examples of imperialist literature. According to Rebecca Stott, author of the article “The Dark Continent: Africa as Female Body in Haggard’s Adventure Fiction,” Haggard's fiction is still popular today and attempts to expose a “cultural and historical definition of white masculinity at its most rugged and its most terrified.”
The Half-Hearted is a 1900 novel of romance and adventure by the Scottish author John Buchan. It was Buchan's first novel in a modern setting and was written when he was 24 while working for an All-Souls fellowship and reading for the bar.
John Burnet of Barns is an 1898 novel by the Scottish author John Buchan, published when he was 23 years of age. His second novel, it had first appeared in serial form in Chambers's Journal earlier that year.
A Lodge in the Wilderness is a 1906 political quasi-novel by the Scottish author John Buchan.
The Blanket of the Dark is a 1931 historical novel by the Scottish author John Buchan. The novel is set in the early part of the reign of Henry VIII, and explores the possible consequences had the Tudors been overthrown by a rightful descendant of Edward III.
The Free Fishers is a 1934 novel by the Scottish author John Buchan, his last work of historical fiction. The novel is set during the period of the Napoleonic Wars and follows the adventures of Anthony Lammas, a young professor at St Andrews, who is drawn into a plot to kill the prime minister Spencer Perceval. He is aided by The Free Fishers, a secret mutual aid organisation.
The Watcher by the Threshold, and other tales is a collection of early novellas and stories, most with supernatural elements, by the Scottish author John Buchan. When first published in the UK in 1902 the collection included five stories, mainly set in the Scottish Borders. The collection was republished for the US market in 1918 under the title The Watcher by the Threshold, with four of the original stories and four new ones.
Prester John public domain audiobook at LibriVox