Buchan was educated at the University of Glasgow and Oxford, and began to write and publish stories from his college days. He later qualified as a lawyer and went to South Africa to work there in a government (colonial) job. He later served in many countries as a representative of the British government and was later made Governor-General of Canada. In 1935 the British government honoured him by making him a lord. He died in Perthshire, Scotland, in 1940.