The Wind in the Portico, John Buchan
The Wind in the Portico, John Buchan
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The Wind in the Portico

Author: John Buchan

Narrator: Cathy Dobson

Unabridged: 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/10/2014


Synopsis

Colonel John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (1875 - 1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian and politician. He is best known for his mystery and ghost stories.The Wind in the Portico is a strange tale of a visit by a classical scholar, Nightingale, to an odd castle set in a park in Shropshire where a rare manuscript is housed.

The owner of the castle is the amiable but eccentric Dubellay, an amateur historian who inherited his title and mansion ten years earlier and took the opportunity to excavate the site of an old Roman temple in the grounds. Since then he has spent a fortune building a huge and bizarre portico onto one side of his house as a home for the carvings and altar from the temple.

Nightingale is puzzled by the oppressive heat in the house, the strange hot wind which blows through the portico... and most of all by the very odd behaviour of Dubellay. It appears that Dubellay is in terrible danger and something highly sinister has taken up residence in the portico.

About John Buchan

John Buchan was a Scottish diplomat, barrister, journalist, historian, poet, and novelist. During his lifetime, he produced one hundred works, including nearly thirty novels and seven collections of short stories. His personal experiences greatly influenced his war-themed novels. Alfred Hitchcock, who considered Buchan one of his favorite writers, adapted Buchan's thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps and Greenmantle into screenplays.

Buchan was born in 1875 in Peebles-Shire Scotland, the eldest son of Reverend John Buchan. He studied at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and Brasenose College in Oxford, England, where he won the prestigious Stanhope Essay Prize and Newdigate Prize. He started his writing career in the late 1890s and published his first novel, Sir Quixote of the Moors, in 1895. After a sojourn in South Africa, Buchan became a dedicated supporter of Britain's Imperial Government. In 1901, he became a barrister of the Middle Temple and a private secretary to the High Commissioner for South Africa. Two years later, Buchan started to work for the publisher Thomas Nelson and Sons, where he revitalized pocket editions of great literature.

In 1907, Buchan got married, and he and his wife had three sons and one daughter. During World War I, Buchan worked as a war correspondent before joining the army. He served on the Headquarters Staff of the British Army in France as a temporary lieutenant colonel. Later, he was appointed director of information and then director of intelligence. From 1927 to 1935, Buchan was the Conservative MP for the Scottish universities. He also served as Lord High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland. In 1935, after moving to Canada, Buchan was appointed the first Baron Tweedsmuir of Elsfield and served as governor general of Canada until his death in 1940.


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