James Buckland

James Buckland is a little-documented author from the early United States who is associated with An Account of the Discovery of a Hermit and related editions of A Wonderful Discovery of a Hermit. Library records and scholarly references credit the work to James Buckland, often alongside John Fielding, and describe the pair in the story as the men who discovered the hermit during a western journey in 1785.

Although firm biographical details about Buckland himself are scarce, the book clearly made an impression. Princeton University Library notes that the hermit story was one of the notable domestic sellers of 1786, and surviving catalog records show that it appeared in multiple editions and reprints soon afterward.

Because so little about Buckland’s life has been securely preserved, he is remembered mainly through this curious frontier-era narrative and its afterlife in early American print culture.