Prester John.

John Buchan (1875–1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, and public servant whose career combined literary achievement with imperial administration. Educated at the University of Glasgow and Oxford, Buchan gained international recognition for his adventure fiction, most notably The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), while also producing works of history and biography. Prester John (1910) by John Buchan is an imperial adventure novel that follows nineteen-year-old David Crawfurd, a young Scotsman who travels to South Africa and becomes entangled in a large-scale native uprising. The rebellion is led by the charismatic Reverend John Laputa, who invokes the legend of the medieval priest-king Prester John to unite African tribes against colonial authority. As Crawfurd uncovers the scope of the conspiracy, he finds himself in direct opposition to Laputa, whose intelligence and magnetism make him a formidable antagonist.