The lawyer behind the name
Buchan was born at St Andrews in Quebec’s Argenteuil region in 1852. A contemporary history of Montreal records his law degree from McGill University in 1884 and his subsequent practice at the Montreal bar. His professional work included legal journalism and service on a commission revising Quebec’s statutes in 1904. Alongside the law, he took an active interest in the city’s educational and scientific institutions.
By 1914 he was vice-president of the Natural History Society of Montreal and a governor of the Montreal Boys Home. His publications included Some Notes on Mount Royal and other scientific papers as well as fiction. His first wife, Catherine McMartin, died in 1894; he married Annie Henderson in 1896. McGill’s archival record identifies him with the Erskine pseudonym and records his death in Verdun in 1927.
A Bit of Atlantis acknowledges a personal connection with Sir William Dawson, the geologist and McGill principal. Buchan dedicated it to Dawson in gratitude for counsel during his student years. The university also preserves a letter he sent Dawson in June 1899. The dedication places the novel beside his scientific interests, although it does not establish that Dawson endorsed its account of Atlantis.
Romance and a warning from Atlantis
Published in Montreal in 1900, A Bit of Atlantis begins with a lengthy discussion of Plato’s island and the arguments of later writers. Buchan acknowledged a particular debt to Ignatius Donnelly and reproduced maps by permission of Harper & Brothers. In his first preface he hoped that romance would encourage readers to investigate the subject. In the second-edition preface, dated 1 May 1900 and included in the library’s copy, he stressed a warning: increasing wealth could bring disaster to individuals and nations.
The story joins the fortunes of a Canadian family to a sea voyage, a mysterious island and the remains of an ancient civilisation. Atalyn’s adventures eventually lead back to Montreal and an unexpected inheritance. The parallels between the decline of Atlantis and the failings of a later aristocratic family give the discoveries a moral purpose: prosperity can bring ruin when it encourages indolence and excess.
Buchan’s long introduction sought credibility in classical texts, ocean soundings and comparisons between cultures. Those arguments belong to the speculative literature of his period, rather than establishing that the island existed. Illustrations credited to H. Julien and R. G. Mathews give the romance a further visual setting. Together, the historical discussion and adventure show how he used a lost world to connect scientific curiosity with a warning about the conduct of the present.
