GRAHAM’S URGE to write had not abated, and his first literary attempts in print after leaving parliament were his essays Father Archangel of Scotland (1893), and ‘In the Tarumensian Woods’ (1894). His major long-term literary breakthrough, however, was precipitated in 1895 with the publication of a guidebook entitled Notes on the District of Menteith. Taylor believed that due to Graham’s notoriety as hero/villain, his slim volume was widely reviewed, and it ran to three reprints. Most significantly, the Saturday Review extolled it as:

Taylor added that as a direct consequence of this piece, Graham had been recruited to the Saturday Review by the new owner and editor, Frank Harris, who had purchased the periodical after Notes was published, and that his first article was ‘Salvagia’, published in September 1896. Taylor’s assertions were, however, incorrect. Harris purchased the Saturday Review in December 1894, and Graham made his first contribution to it in early August 1895, the same month as his Notes appeared in print, and a month before it was reviewed. Graham continued his association with the journal long after Harris sold it in 1898, and contributed sketches and book reviews up until 1913, with occasional articles between 1924 and 1926, and a final article in 1931. It had been by a stroke of luck and personal contact that he became a regular contributor, and it was the prestige of the Saturday Review that made and sustained his literary reputation, for, as Taylor wrote: