He wrote a twenty-four volume history of the war, which was later abridged.Īlongside his busy public life, Buchan wrote superb action novels, including the spy-catching adventures of Richard Hannay, whose exploits are described in The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle, Mr. During the first world war, he was Director of Information in the British government. On returning to Britain, Buchan built a successful career in publishing with Nelsons and Reuters. His love for South Africa is a recurring theme in his fiction. After a brief career in law he went to South Africa in 1902 where he contributed to the reconstruction of the country following the Boer War. At the time of his death he was Governor-General of Canada.īuchan was educated at Glasgow and Oxford Universities. John Buchan (1st Baron Tweedsmuir) was a Scottish novelist and public servant who combined a successful career as an author of thrillers, historical novels, histories and biographies with a parallel career in public life.

His life and the security of Britan are in grave peril, and everything rests on the solution to a baffling enigma: what are the 'thirty nine steps?' An obvious suspect, Hannay flees to his native Scotland, pursued by both the police and a cunning, ruthless enemy. Initially sceptical, Hannay nonetheless harbours the man-but one dayreturns home to find him murdered. In 2003 the book was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's 'best-loved novels.' Adventurer Richard Hannay, just returned from South Africa, is thoroughly bored with London life-until he is accosted by a mysterious American, who warns him of an assassination plot that could completely destabalise the fragile political balance of Europe.

The novel formed the basis for a number of film adaptations: Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 version a 1959 colour remake a 1978 version which is perhaps most faithful to the novel and a 2008 version for British television. It is the first of five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a miraculous knack for getting himself out of sticky situations. It first appeared as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine in August and September 1915 before being published in book form in October that year by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh. The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure novel by the Scottish author John Buchan.

Buchan the thirty nine steps