The Thirty-Nine Steps -- John Buchan

<p>The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure novel by Scottish author John Buchan. It was serialized in All-Story Weekly (June 5 and June 12, 1915) and Blackwood's Magazine (credited to "H de V.", July - September 1915) before being published in book form in October 1915 by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh. It is the first of the five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a miraculous knack for getting himself out of tricky situations.</p><p><br></p><p>The novel has been the basis for many successful adaptations, including several films and a long-running stage play. In 2003, the book was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novels." </p><p><br></p><p>The Thirty-Nine Steps is one of the earliest examples of the '"man-on-the-run" thriller archetype subsequently adopted by film makers as a much-used plot device. In The Thirty-Nine Steps, Buchan holds up Richard Hannay as an example to his readers of an ordinary man who puts his country's interests before his own safety. The story was a great success with the men in the First World War trenches. One soldier wrote to Buchan, "The story is greatly appreciated in the midst of mud and rain and shells, and all that could make trench life depressing."</p><p><br></p><p>Hannay continued his adventures in four subsequent books. Two were set during the war, when he continued his undercover work against the Germans and their allies the Turks in Greenmantle (1916) and Mr St