Historian, biographer, historical novelist, and statesman, John Buchan found an enduring reputation in popular fiction. The "Buchan touch" is a term applied to fiction that shares his appeal: romantic yet not preposterous characters and a superb sense of setting and climate with swiftly moving plots. Written with unassuming ease, his works of high adventure and political intrigue have had a wide readership. He introduced to spy fiction its basic theme: that evil and worldwide conspiracies can lie just beneath the surface of civilization. According to character Andrew Lumley in his novel The Power-House (1916), it is civilization that holds anarchy at bay.

In more than eighty short stories published over a period of forty years in nine collections, Buchan replicated the themes and subjects of his longer works, including historical adventure, escapes and hurried journeys, essays into the supernatural, taut spy thrillers, portraits of individuals under stress, and playful...