
Midwinter by John Buchan was first published in 1927 and although this is historical fiction, with the setting being 1745 – yes it’s those Jacobites again – the book has a lot in common with Buchan’s ‘contemporary’ adventure fiction books. Alistair Maclean has been based in France with Charles Edward Stuart and his supporters, but he is now in England and is travelling up the country towards the Scottish army which is making its way towards London. On the way he meets up with some aristocratic English Jacobite supporters but not all is as it seems and Maclean realises that there’s some double dealing going on and he ends up being hunted down across the country.
Of course there has to be some romance, and Maclean has fallen for the young Jacobite wife of Norreys, but he’s just pretending to be on the Jacobite side and his wife would be horrified if she knew what her husband is really like. The character of Midwinter keeps a low profile for most of the book.
A young Dr Samuel Johnson appears as a tutor. Apparently Buchan had realised that Johnson was a Jacobite sympathiser and as his biographer Boswell had left a couple of gap years in his book on Samuel Johnson Buchan surmised that this was because Johnson had been busy with the Jacobite cause.
There’s an introduction by the Scottish novelist Allan Massie.
Anyway, I don’t want to say too much about this one as Jack intends to read it soon, when he does I’ll link to his review of the book. I enjoyed it anyway although I’m just about at saturation point as far as Jacobite settings go!
Ha, yes, I’ve kinda reached my Jacobite limit too! Between them and “grim, gritty Glasgow” books sometimes I despair of Scottish fiction… ?
FictionFan,
Sometimes you would think that those are the only things worth writing about in Scotland!
Fiction Fan,
Try Andrew Greig or Andrew Crumey. Not a hint of Jacobites or grim gritty Glasgow.
Loved Andrew Greig’s Rose Nicolson, and have enjoyed a couple of his other books, but I haven’t tried Andrew Crumey – I shall investigate, and thanks for the recommendation!
I ought to have added Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song of course. Some Alan Warner too, mostly the later stuff.
Crumey doesn’t often address Scottish themes but he’s well worth reading.
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