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James Buchan is the author of several novels, including A Parish of Rich Women, which won the 1984 Whitbread Book of the Year award, and Heart's Journey in Winter which won the Guardian prize. He is also an outstanding literary critic and non-fiction writer whose works include a biography of Adam Smith, Frozen Desire: An Enquiry into the Meaning of Money and Captial of the Mind.A wonderful portrait of Law's Paris and Europe, of the Regent and the Jacobites. I loved it and could hardly put it down.
- Philip Mansel,
Excellent . . . Buchan's book is both scrupulously researched and humanely curious . . . It has Jacobite politics, elopements, prisons breaks and court scandal . . . much to savour.
- Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday.
In Buchan, Law has at last found a biographer who combines an expert understanding of finance, a profound knowledge of 18th-century history, and a novelist's gift for anecdote and pace. The result is an immensely valuable and enjoyable book that conjures a narrative worthy of Robert Louis Stevenson out of a deeply impressive harvest of primary archival research. It is history of the highest class, and will take its place deservedly as the standard biography of Law.
- Felix Martin, Financial Times.
Erudite, elegantly-written . . . Full of interesting people, variously disgraceful or brilliant, and of compelling stories overlapped . . . Buchan is possessed of a remarkably well-furnished mind. His story is a tremendous one.
- Lucy Hughes-Hallett, New Statesman.
One of our finest writers.
- John Burnside, The Times.
I don't believe this country has a better writer to offer than James Buchan.
- Michael Hofmann, London Review of Books.
An utterly compelling and captivating work . . . he brings a natural storyteller's relish to his subject
- Irvine Welsh, Guardian, on The Capital of the Mind.
Mr Buchan has a clear writing style, a light touch and a irreverent sense of humour . . . he makes difficult subjects accessible and, sometimes, poetic.
Economist.
In Mr. Buchan's able hands, Smith and his words come across as they should, in all their lucidity and elegance.
- William Grimes, New York Times, on Adam Smith: and the Pursuit of Perfect Liberty.
James Buchan's elegant prose sparkles on the page.
New Statesman.
Each book he writes is a discovery.
- Steven Poole, Guardian.
There's a place for a well researched, popular, comprehensive biography of John Law and Buchan's is certainly that . . . Even with the benefit of this wonderful book with its wealth of new information and masterful storytelling, it is difficult to know what to make of John Law.
- Harry McGrath, Scottish Review of Books.
Law's is an extraordinary story, and this is an extraordinary book . . . Buchan writes with such wit and lucidity.
- Allan Massie, Literary Review.
Buchan tells the story and portrays the man with enormous sweep and brio. He has clearly done a vast amount of research among the primary sources, yet somehow manages to combine the historian's sense of the wider picture with the epigrammatic wit of the novelist, and the antiquarian's delight in curios . . . It is a fascinating, poignant, almost heroic story, and we must thank James Buchan for giving us this masterly account of it.
- Jesse Norman, Spectator.
Law's story is well and wittily told by Buchan . . . The mores of the time... are superbly depicted. The age comes alive.
- David Aaronovitch, The Times.