NOVELS

It is safe to say that Robert Buchanan’s novels have not stood the test of time. There are 26 titles listed in the bibliography, which, of itself, implies that Buchanan’s novels must have enjoyed some measure of popularity in their day. But none of them have managed to seep into the public consciousness to become ‘classics’ and they have no standing either in the more rarefied atmosphere of the academic world. So, Buchanan’s novels will never be the subject of doctoral theses or prestigious BBC adaptations.

It was never the intention of this website to bring Buchanan’s novels back into the world. They have all been out of print for many years now and it is doubtful that situation will ever change. For Buchanan they served their purpose, they kept the wolf from the door.

In Harriett Jay’s biography, Chapter 18: ‘First Ideas of Novel Writing’, gives a fascinating portrait of Buchanan at work. His initial idea was to write a novel in collaboration with William Canton and the chapter contains his correspondence on the matter. The collaboration failed however and Buchanan continued alone, producing his first novel, The Shadow of the Sword, which was initially published in The Gentleman’s Magazine in monthly instalments. In Chapter 20 Harriett Jay offers more insights into Buchanan’s working methods including the following passage:

     “The arrangements made, Mr. Buchanan set to work with a will and wrote his monthly instalments with keen pleasure. He had the story very clearly mapped out from start to finish, so that when it came to be written it flowed easily from his pen. His monthly parts were the neatest things I have ever seen written, as they were in a very tiny but perfectly clear hand on ordinary sheets of note-paper, and almost without an erasure. I fear, however, he was never far ahead with his “copy,” the writing of which he invariably postponed till the last possible moment, and this method of his was the cause later on of some trouble. While the story was running in the magazine there occurred a fire on the premises of Messrs. Grant, the publishers, and a good deal of valuable manuscript was destroyed, amongst it the last instalment of the “Shadow of the Sword.” As usual this had arrived late, too late for the editor to have had an opportunity of sending a proof and as Mr. Buchanan himself had kept no copy (there was no typewriting in those days), the only thing to be done was for him to set to work and rewrite the instalment. This he did with such marvellous rapidity that the appearance of the magazine was not delayed by a single day.”

The Shadow of the Sword was published in book form in 1876, but despite its success, Buchanan waited another five years before publishing his second novel, God and the Man. After this, there came a steady stream of titles. At the close of Chapter 20, Harriett Jay gives her own assessment of Buchanan’s novels:

“Into these two novels, “The Shadow of the Sword” and “God and the Man,” Mr. Buchanan, as I have shown, put the very best work of which he was capable. Both were conceived and partly written as poems, and both remained poems although they were given to the world in prose form. Had things gone well with him he would, in all probability, have continued to give the world of his very best, but after the publication of “God and the Man” he had to face a calamity which would have broken down many a stronger man. His young wife, who had never been strong, was stricken with the cruellest of all diseases, cancer, and for two long years she was slowly dying. He was too poor a man to be able to sit down and nurse his grief, work had to be done, and he did it, though not with the same heart, the same enthusiasm. His great ambition now was to make money, and so he scribbled at fiction in order to attain this end. His output was very great and very rapid, and although his income increased, his position as a novelist declined, many of his later novels were written, as it were, with his left hand, and it is certain that had he been a man of means they would never have been written at all.”

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Buchanan’s first two novels are available to download from the West Midlands Literary Heritage site:

The Shadow of the Sword

God and the Man

Since this version of God and the Man just contains the ‘Proem’ and text of the novel, I have also added a page to this site of some additional material: the original dedication to Rossetti (‘To An Old Enemy’), a second dedication to Rossetti following his death, the Preface to the 1882 edition, and a series of illustrations by Fred. Barnard from the Chatto & Windus edition of 1900.

God and the Man - additional material

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The Internet Archive has the following novels available for download in a variety of formats:

Foxglove Manor (Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3)

The New Abelard (Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3)

The Master of the Mine (Volume 1, Volume 2)

Rachel Dene: a tale of the Deepdale Mills

Andromeda: an idyll of the Great River

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In The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction, John Sutherland offers the following assessment of Buchanan’s novels:
“His first novel, The Shadow Of The Sword (1876), has as its hero a Breton conscientious objector in the Napoleonic Wars. It has a powerful final chapter, describing the tormented sleeping hours of the exiled emperor. His finest work is usually judged to be God And The Man (1881), a study in the futile psychology of hatred with a terrific action climax in the polar wastelands. The Martyrdom Of Madeline (1882) follows the fortunes of a resourceful heroine after she is betrayed in love by her French music master. Foxglove Manor (1884) has a ritualist clergyman who seduces and abandons a young girl, and goes on to various acts of Romish apostasy. The Master Of The Mine (1885) has a Cornish mining setting. The Heir Of Linne (1888) is a conventional inheritance melodrama with an 1840s Scottish setting. Effie Hetherington (1896) is a story of ill-assorted marriage and justified desertion with some similarity to Hardy’s Jude The Obscure.”

John Cassidy in his book about Buchanan, published in 1973, singled out five of the novels as “too good to be forgotten”: The Shadow of the Sword, The Martyrdom of Madeline, Effie Hetherington, Diana’s Hunting, and Father Anthony.

Personally, I am intrigued by two of Buchanan’s novels, The Moment After: a tale of the unseen and The Rev. Annabel Lee: a tale of to-morrow, which are more in the fantasy vein, and which I have yet to track down. I did find a copy of the former on ebay, but it was a German edition (picture below) and as I don’t know German at all, I let it go. One of the reasons for the sudden plunge in Buchanan’s reputation after his death is the fact that too much of his work was written solely for money. I have no problem with hackwork, and some of my favourite books could be described as pulp fiction. So, maybe there are hidden gems among Buchanan’s novels. If I come across any, I will amend this page accordingly.

[Author of “Squire Kate” - the alternate title of “Come Live with Me and Be My Love” - from the 1892 illustrated edition published by Lovell, Coryell & Co. Picture courtesy of the New York Public Library.]

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The Novels:

The Shadow of the Sword. 3 vols. London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1876. [review]

A Child of Nature. 3 vols. London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1881.

God and the Man. London: Chatto & Windus, 1881.

The Martyrdom of Madeline. 3 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1882.

Love Me For Ever. London: Chatto & Windus, 1883.

Annan Water. 3 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1883. [review]

Foxglove Manor. 3 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1884.

The New Abelard. 3 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1884. [review]

The Master of the Mine. 2 vols. London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1885. [review]

Matt: A Story of a Caravan. London: Chatto & Windus, 1885. (U.S. title: Matt: A Tale of a Caravan)

Stormy Waters. 3 vols. London: John and Robert Maxwell, 1885.
(A novelization of the 1883 play, A Sailor and His Lass, written in collaboration with Augustus Harris.)

That Winter Night: or, Love’s Victory. Bristol: Arrowsmith’s Bristol Library, 1886.

The Heir of Linne. 2 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1888.

The Moment After: a tale of the unseen. London: William Heinemann, 1890. [review]

Come Live with Me and Be My Love: an English pastoral. London: William Heinemann, 1891. (Alternate title: Squire Kate.)

The Wedding Ring: a tale of to-day. New York: Cassell Publishing Co., 1891. [review]

Woman and the Man. London: Chatto & Windus, 1893.

Rachel Dene: a tale of the Deepdale Mills. 2 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1894.

Lady Kilpatrick. London: Chatto & Windus, 1895. [review]

The Charlatan. (In collaboration with Henry Murray.) London: Chatto & Windus, 1895.

Diana’s Hunting. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895. [review]

A Marriage by Capture. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1896. [review]

Effie Hetherington. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1896. [review]

Father Anthony. London: John Long, 1898. [review]

The Rev. Annabel Lee: a tale of to-morrow. London: C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd. 1898. [review]

Andromeda: an idyll of the Great River. London: Chatto & Windus, 1900. [review]

The Peep O’ day boy: a Romance of ’98. London: John Dicks, 1902.