The Thirty-Nine Steps

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John Buchan

Literature

Aug 25, 2018

Having returned to London after long residence in southern Africa, Richard Hannay finds himself stuck in a rut. Much to the reader’s delight, Hannay will make his way out of it by falling into another ditch so deep that it hides in its dark recesses murder, espionage, and a plot to undermine the security of England on the eve of World War I. He’ll climb to ultimate safety only by means of the mysterious thirty-nine steps that give this splendid adventure its title. The first of Buchan’s several Hannay adventures, The Thirty-Nine Steps is a precursor to the spy novel as later practiced by Graham Greene, Eric Ambler, and Ian Fleming; but it is the author’s own storytelling inheritance from the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle that make this book an enduring joy.

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