Other editions of book John Macnab

Three successful but bored friends in their mid-forties decide to turn to poaching. They are Sir Edward Leithen, lawyer, Tory Member of Parliament (MP), and ex-Attorney General; John Palliser-Yeates, banker and sportsman; and Charles, Earl of Lamancha, former adventurer and present Tory Cabinet Minister. Under the collective name of John Macnab, they set up in the Highland home of Sir Archie Roylance, a disabled war hero who wishes to be a Conservative MP.

Three successful but bored friends in their mid-forties decide to turn to poaching. They are Sir Edward Leithen, lawyer, Tory Member of Parliament (MP), and ex-Attorney General; John Palliser-Yeates, banker and sportsman; and Charles, Earl of Lamancha, former adventurer and present Tory Cabinet Minister. Under the collective name of John Macnab, they set up in the Highland home of Sir Archie Roylance, a disabled war hero who wishes to be a Conservative MP.

John Macnab is the second most famous novel by John Buchan, published in 1925. It is a story of three successful men - a barrister, cabinet minister and banker who are bored. They decide to alleviate the boredom by anonymously informing three Scottish estates that they intend to poach a stag or a salmon and returning it to them undetected. It is about daring thinking and high living set in the beautiful Highlands of Scotland and evoking images of the hunting, shooting and fishing lifestyle.

The great doctor stood on the hearth-rug looking down at his friend who sprawled before him in an easy-chair. It was a hot day in early July, and the windows were closed and the blinds half-down to keep out the glare and dust. The standing figure had bent shoulders, a massive clean-shaven face, and a keen interrogatory air, and might have passed his sixtieth birthday. He looked like a distinguished lawyer who would soon leave his practice for the Bench. But it was the man in the chair who was the lawyer, the man who had the forty behind him but was still on the pleasant side of the fifty."I tell you for the tenth time that there is nothing wrong with you.""And I tell you for the tenth time that I'm miserably ill."The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Then it's a sick mind, which I don't propose to the minister. What do you say is wrong?""Simply what my housekeeper calls a 'no-how' feeling.""It's clearly nothing physical. Your heart and lungs are sound. Your digestion is as good as anyone's in Midsummer London. Your nerves — well, I've tried all the stock tests, and they appear to be normal.""Oh, my nerves are all right," said the other wearily.'Your brain seems good enough, except for this dismal obsession that you are ill. I can't find anything earthly wrong, except that you're stale. I don't say run-down, because you're not. Stale in mind. You want a holiday. "