The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)

About this item

SUMMARY: You and I have long cherished an affection for that elemental type of tale which Americans call the dime novel and which we know as the shocker-the romance where the incidents defy the probabilities and John Buchan wrote "The Thirty-Nine Steps" while he was seriously ill at the beginning of World War I. In it, he introduces his most famous hero, Richard Hannay, who, despite claiming to be an "ordinary fellow", is caught up in the dramatic race against a plot to devastate the British war effort. Hannay is hunted across the Scottish moors by police and a pitiless enemy in the corridors of Whitehall and, finally, at the site of th mysterious 39 steps. The best-known of Buchan's thrillers, this novel has been continuously in print since first publication and has been filmed three times just inside the borders of the possible.