JOHN BUCHAN (1875-1940) the bestselling author of numerous novels is one of the most respected writers of fiction. For sheer emotional force, few practitioners of narrative prose can equal him.

His works have been translated into numerous languages and have been made into scores of movies.

Since its publication in 1915, The Thirty-Nine Steps has never been out of print.

On the eve of the First World War, a young mining engineer, Richard Hannay, must elude both foreign spies and British authorities to save his own life and expose a plot with catastrophic implications for Britain. Disguise and deception are his only weapons, as he struggles to decode the clues to prevent the theft of naval secrets by an enemy power.

Richard Hannay is the original mythic action hero. In him we see the origins of every Alfred Hitchcock and James Bond movie in which a man lays his life on the line, steeling himself for the final showdown with a pack of murderous saboteurs, enemy agents, and assorted other spies, and law enforcement villains.