Looking for reasonably significant references to the colour green in John Buchan's books involves eliminating a very large number of descriptions of natural features such as uplands and downs, mountains and moors, water and trees and discarding a large quantity of protective outdoor clothing such as felt hats, capes and tweed coats. The much smaller number of occurrences of specific shades such as apple green and olive green are not of much interest either.
After the routine references to the colour green have been removed, some examples of interest remain; it has taken two articles to cover what might be described as “the best of the rest”.
The first article about John Buchan and the colour green contains green references taken from his writings; this article contains more such references, and it also lists some green people and places of interest in his life.
This section of the article has been inspired by some amusing material in Buchan's Prince of the Captivity that I quoted in the article about his Island of Sheep:
“There were too many houses at Bournemouth, and too many people at Broadstairs, and a horrible band in green jackets at Eastbourne, and a man who made ugly faces at Littlehampton...”
Using that as a model, I have listed some miscellaneous, mostly minor, green references from various novels.
There is an archaeologist called Wintergreen, some green lizards, some wallpaper with pink and green parrots, an envelope heavily sealed with green wax and a strange girl dressed in an unusual shade of green who wears one green glove in The Dancing Floor; there is a Liberal candidate called Orlando Greenstone, a knitted tea-cosy in purple and green and an ancient hostelry called the Green Tree in Castle Gay.
There is a man called Green, a little green lamp, more green lizards, a Border dining club whose members wear faded green coats, green face paint and a translucent green tablet in The Island of Sheep; there is veined green marble, green alabaster, green imperial jade, two green doors and an emerald necklace in Huntingtower.
There is a man called Greenlees and a green drawing room in A Gap in the Curtain; there are green crabs, a green awning, green wooden seats and many references to Greenland in A Prince of the Captivity; in addition to the material already quoted, there are green sun-shutters, green sickness, a pink and green hearthrug and a green dressing gown in Greenmantle.
The brothers Greene
John Buchan has some connections to the brothers Hugh and Graham Greene.
The novelist Graham Greene reviewed Buchan's novels and is said to have been inspired and influenced by Richard Hannay's adventures and what he called the 'Buchan world'.
Looking back to the 1930s, Graham Greene said in Ways of Escape (1980):
“An early hero of mine was John Buchan...”
The Greene brothers jointly edited The Spy's Bedside Book, an anthology that contains a story by and a few references to John Buchan.
Some of John Buchan's connections with green people seem almost as significant as those in the life of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Where Conan Doyle had a supportive editor called Herbert Greenhough Smith, whose promotion of Sherlock Holmes did much to increase the character's success, John Buchan had his editor and great personal friend Ferris Lowell Greenslet, whose promotion of Buchan's work did much to ensure its success in the USA.
Buchan dedicated The Courts of the Morning to fellow fisherman Ferris Greenslet:
Academic and writer Martin Burgess Green is the author of A Biography of John Buchan and His Sister Anna: The Personal Background of Their Literary Work (1990).
The House with the Green Shutters (1901) is a novel by Scottish author George Douglas Brown. It is of interest here because John Buchan mentioned it in an interview:
“Yes, I do mean The House With The Green Shutters. A terrible book, certainly. The swing of the pendulum. For that reason, also untrue. But not so untrue as the other stuff...”
Some editions of John Buchan's books have very attractive, predominantly green, covers.
Here are two examples:
Broughton Green House in Tweeddale on the Scottish Borders was the Buchan family home for more than 100 years. John Buchan spent many holidays and did a lot of his writing there.
John Buchan Way is a long linear scenic walking route from Peebles to Broughton that passes through Tweeddale's green hills and valleys.
