The Thirty-Nine Steps

Introduction

(1915)

This is the first of Buchan's novels to feature Richard Hannay.

Dedicated To Thomas Arthur Nelson (Lothian and Border Horse); My Dear Tommy, 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 march just inside the borders of the possible. During an illness last winter I exhausted my store of those aids to cheerfulness, and was driven to write one for myself. This little volume is the result, and I should like to put your name on it in memory of our long friendship, in the days when the wildest fictions are so much less improbable than the facts. J.B.

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Recent Forum Posts on The Thirty-Nine Steps

John Buchan, One of the World's Greatest Authors

Author, John Buchan, puts so much life into his characters that one feels as if these are truly palpable beings sitting in a room telling you their story. Better yet, the reader is a tiny "fly" in the adventure, sitting on the hero's shoulder experiencing everything firsthand. Buchan's serial stories are chronologically written, so it is important to read the Richard Hannay character books in order. Most of Buchan's books are written in the early 1900's, a time where the telephone is in its infancy, a desktop computer is just a dream, and entertainment is live theater or the hand-wound gramophone with its heavy records and large french horn-shaped speaker. First read "The 39 Steps", then "Greenmantle", "Mr. Standfast", "The Three Hostages", and lastly, "The Island Sheep".

Posted By veronique8 at Sat 18 Aug 2007, 6:52 PM in The Thirty-Nine Steps || 0 Replies

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