Extraordinary gentleman …

… Was there no end to John Buchan’s talents? | Spectator USA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Buchan thought better of his historical novels (just as Conan Doyle preferred Sir Nigel and The White Company to Sherlock Holmes). I think highly of them, too, especially of Witch Wood; but even it is not quite as good as the best of his beloved Scott or Stevenson. His biographies of Scott, Montrose and Augustus are admirable, but biographies are usually superseded. His history of the Great War, published in monthly installments by Nelson’s, was a remarkable achievement, but inevitably long outdated. Yet almost everything he wrote remains readable, partly because he has an unmistakable personal voice. This makes him easy to parody, but few books survive without such individuality.