A Lodge in the Wilderness

A Lodge in the Wilderness is a book by John Buchan, first published in 1906. It’s a political “quasi-novel” built around an imagined gathering rather than a conventional plot-driven story. Buchan uses the form to explore early twentieth-century debates about the British Empire, national purpose, and social responsibility, blending ideas, dialogue, and character sketches into a distinctive piece of classic political fiction. The book centres on a conference arranged by the multi-millionaire Francis Carey, who invites an equal party of nine men and nine women from the upper and professional classes to discuss “Empire” — specifically how it might be understood as a positive influence. The lodge setting becomes a kind of intellectual arena, where viewpoints clash and converge across questions of politics, society, duty, and reform. Buchan’s method is to let the characters’ voices carry a wide range of contemporary arguments, so the reading experience feels like being present at a high-level Edwardian round-table: serious, disputatious, and sometimes witty. One standout portrait is Lady Flora Brume, whose characterisation was based on Susan Grosvenor, later Buchan’s wife. For readers interested in British political novels, imperial history in literature, and Edwardian social thought, A Lodge in the Wilderness offers a fascinating snapshot of its moment — and of Buchan before his later fame as a thriller writer. The novel also draws on his South African experiences and engages with the political aftershocks of the period’s shifting views on imperial policy.