John Buchan

The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure novel. The novel formed the basis for a number of film adaptations, including 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.

Published near the beginning of World War I The Thirty-Nine Steps is one of the earliest examples of the man-on-the-run thriller archetype in which the author, John Buchan, holds up Richard Hannay as an example to his readers of an ordinary man who pu

"The House of the Four Winds" is a 1935 adventure novel by the Scottish novelist John Buchan. It is set in the fictional European country of Evallonia in the early 1930s, and explores the influence of some Scottish visitors in the toppling of a corrupt government - and the reinstatement of a monarchy. This text is a must-read for anyone who has enjoyed its prequel, "Castle Gay", or any of Buchan's writing, and it would make for a worthy addition to any bookshelf. The chapters of this book include: 'The Man with the Elephant', 'The House of the Four Winds', 'Diversions of a Marionette', 'Difficulties as a Revolutionary', 'Surprising Energy of a Convalescent', 'Arrivals at an Inn', 'Splendide Mendax', 'Night in the Woods', etcetera. Many texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned biography of the author.

John Buchan takes us back to Edwardian Britain on the eve of the First World War in the modern thriller "The Thirty-Nine Steps". An inexplicable murder drives the innocent Richard Hannay, on the run from a manhunt that never seems to end, to hide in remote Scottish moorland. Disguise and deception are his only weapons, as he struggles to decode the clues left by the murdered man to prevent the theft of naval secrets by an unfriendly foreign power. Buchan's narrative voice has the easy authority of a government insider, with the smooth assurance of a man in the know. "The Thirty-Nine Steps" was a powerful influence on the development of the detective novel, the action romance, and the spy story.