The Runagates Club

John Buchan’s The Runagates Club is a classic of British interwar short fiction. These twelve stories appeared from 1913 to 1927, when he was at the peak of his powers, and feature Richard Hannay, Edward Leithen, and many newcomers to the Buchan canon. John Buchan designed The Runagates Club as a showcase for the best of his 1920s magazine fiction. He repurposed these stories with new beginnings, and framed them as after-dinner tales told over the port in a private gentleman’s dining-club. The narrators are a ready-made cast of storytelling characters, and Buchan filled out their backgrounds to fit the patrician, clubland background. This is interwar story-telling at its very best, with an introduction and notes on the text by Buchan expert Kate Macdonald.