The Thirty-Nine Steps

by John Buchan

Overview

This spy story of 1915 by John Buchan (1875–1940) is an archetype of the genre, but may be better known today through its film and television versions (especially that of Alfred Hitchcock in 1935). Curiously, although all keep the theme of German espionage which will trigger a world war, none of them sticks at all closely to Buchan's original plot. This is the first of five novels in which Richard Hannay, formerly a mining engineer in colonial Africa, now a patriotic gentleman of leisure, finds himself pitted against the enemies of the British Empire. Although the book is an exciting, if occasionally implausible, adventure story, it may be marred for a modern readership by the racism and anti-Semitism it expresses, though this was not exceptional for the period. The writing is also noticeable, however, for lyrical descriptions of the Scottish border country in which Buchan himself grew up.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108060363
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/03/2013
Series:	Cambridge Library Collection - Fiction and Poetry
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	258
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

John Buchan (1875–1940) was Governor-General of Canada, biographer of Walter Scott and author of adventure thrillers. Featuring the daring exploits of Richard Hannay in the years before the Second World War his novels are still widely read today.

Kate Macdonald (Introduction and Further Reading) is a literary historian and publisher, and has published several books, chapters and articles on the life and work of John Buchan, including John Buchan. A Companion to the Mystery Fiction (2009), Reassessing John Buchan: Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps (ed. 2009), and John Buchan and the Idea of Modernity (ed. with Nathan Waddell, 2013). She was editor of the John Buchan Journal for eleven years. She lives in Bath.

Table of Contents

1. The man who died; 2. The milkman sets out on his travels; 3. The adventure of the literary innkeeper; 4. The adventure of the Radical candidate; 5. The adventure of the spectacled roadman; 6. The adventure of the bald archaeologist; 7. The dry-fly fisherman; 8. The coming of the Black Stone; 9. The thirty-nine steps; 10. Various parties converging on the sea.

Editorial Reviews

Another hot new series from Penguin, "Great Books for Boys" offers a handful of top adventure stories from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Each volume sports a nice vintage-looking cover to complete the spell. Great fun (and girls can read them, too!).

—Michael Rogers

Library Journal

"Lethal, spare, clean and contemporary." —Guardian

From the Publisher