Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Buchanan, David (1745-1812)
BUCHANAN, DAVID, the elder (1745–1812), printer and publisher, a descendant of the ancient family of Buchanan of Buchanan, was born at Montrose in 1746, and studied at the university of Aberdeen, where he graduated M.A. He began the business of printing in his native town at a time when the art was practised in few of the provincial towns of Scotland, and his enterprise as a publisher was also shown by the issue of good editions of the dictionaries of Johnson, Boyer, and Ainsworth. He abridged Johnson's dictionary for the earliest pocket edition ever printed. Among his other publications special mention may be made of his miniature series of English classics, also revised and corrected by himself. He died in 1812.
[Anderson's Scottish Nation.]