Description
Published in 1919, Mr. Standfast is a thriller set in the latter half of the First World War, and the third of John Buchan’s books to feature Richard Hannay.
Richard Hannay is called back from serving in France to take part in a secret mission: searching for a German agent. Hannay disguises himself as a pacifist and travels through England and Scotland to track down the spy at the center of a web of German agents who are leaking information about the war plans. He hopes to infiltrate and feed misinformation back to Germany. His journey takes him from Glasgow to Skye, onwards into the Swiss Alps, and on to the Western Front.
During the course of his work he’s again reunited with Peter Pienaar and John Blenkiron, who both appear in Greenmantle, as well as Sir Walter Bullivant, his Foreign Office contact from The Thirty Nine Steps.
The title of the novel comes from a character in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress to which there are many references in the book, not least of all as a codebook which Hannay uses to decipher messages from his allies.
The book finishes with a captivating description of some of the final battles of the First World War between Britain and Germany in Eastern France.
Description
Greenmantle is the second of John Buchan’s novels to feature Richard Hannay, a Scottish intelligence office in the British army, and as such is the sequel to The Thirty-Nine Steps.
The book gives the account of Hannay and his associate’s separate journeys through war-torn Europe to Constantinople to thwart an uprising that is poised to throw the Middle East, India, and North Africa into disarray, changing the course of the war.
The book was popular when first published and although it has never been made into a film, the director Alfred Hitchcock was said to prefer Greenmantle to The Thirty-Nine Steps, and considered filming it on several occasions.
Description
Published in 1915, The Thirty-Nine Steps is a thriller set in Britain on the eve of the First World War.
The novel’s protagonist, Richard Hannay, is an expatriate Scot who has just returned to London after many years in South Africa working in the mining industry. He finds England extremely dull and is just considering returning to South Africa when he is accosted by another inhabitant of the block of flats where he is living.
This man, Scudder, tells Hannay he knows of a fantastical plot by England’s enemies to create a diplomatic scandal. Hannay, at first skeptical, eventually accepts that there is something in it and harbours Scudder in his own flat. Returning to his flat some days later, Hannay is horrified to find Scudder stabbed to death. Realising that he will be suspected by the police, and that he may also be in danger from the plotters, Hannay flees London.
What follows is an exciting chase across Scotland, with Hannay frequently coming close to capture.
The Thirty-Nine Steps was immediately popular, particularly with troops in the trenches of the First World War. It has remained popular and has been used as the basis for several movies including one directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935. It could also be seen as the prototype of several similarly-themed movies and television shows such as The Fugitive.
John Buchan continued the adventures of Richard Hannay in a series of sequels. He also had a highly distinguished government and diplomatic career, ultimately becoming Governor General of Canada.