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    The Thirty-Nine Steps
    The Thirty-Nine Steps
    The Thirty-Nine Steps
    Ebook147 pages1 hour

    The Thirty-Nine Steps

    By John Buchan

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    About this ebook

    A special edition of The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan reissued with a bright retro design to celebrate Pan’s 70th anniversary.

    When a strange man turns up on his doorstep with stories of spies and assassinations, Richard Hannay is drawn into the murky world of international espionage. Four days later, the stranger is dead and Hannay is caught up in a dramatic race to prevent a world war. Hunted across Britain by enemies unknown, he must outwit his pursuers and try to reach the site of the mysterious ‘Thirty-Nine Steps’.

    Set in 1914, this classic British thriller has been adapted many times for stage, television and film.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPan Macmillan
    Release dateSep 7, 2017
    ISBN9781509858446
    Author

    John Buchan

    John Buchan was a Scottish diplomat, barrister, journalist, historian, poet and novelist. He published nearly 30 novels and seven collections of short stories. He was born in Perth, an eldest son, and studied at Glasgow and Oxford. In 1901 he became a barrister of the Middle Temple and a private secretary to the High Commissioner for South Africa. In 1907 he married Susan Charlotte Grosvenor and they subsequently had four children. After spells as a war correspondent, Lloyd George's Director of Information and Conservative MP, Buchan moved to Canada in 1935. He served as Governor General there until his death in 1940. Hew Strachan is Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford; his research interests include military history from the 18th century to date, including contemporary strategic studies, but with particular interest in the First World War and in the history of the British Army.

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      Book preview

      The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Buchan

      Pan was founded in 1944 by Alan Bott, then owner of The Book Society. Over the next eight years he was joined by a consortium of four leading publishers – William Collins, Macmillan, Hodder & Stoughton and William Heinemann – and together they launched an imprint that is an international leader in popular paperback publishing to this day.

      Pan’s first mass-market paperback was Ten Stories by Rudyard Kipling. Published in 1947, and priced at one shilling and sixpence, it had a distinctive logo based on a design by artist and novelist Mervyn Peake. Paper was scarce in post-war Britain, but happily the Board of Trade agreed that Pan could print its books abroad and import them into Britain provided that they exported half the total number of books printed. The first batch of 250,000 books were dispatched from Paris to Pan’s warehouse in Esher on an ex-Royal Navy launch named Laloun. The vessel’s first mate, Gordon Young, was to become the first export manager for Pan.

      Around fifty titles appeared in the first year, each with average print runs of 25,000 copies. Success came quickly, largely due to the choice of vibrant, descriptive book covers that distinguished Pan books from the uniformity of Penguin paperbacks, which were the only real competitors at the time.

      Pan’s expertise lay in its ability to popularize its authors, and a combination of arresting design coupled with energetic marketing and sales helped turn the likes of Leslie Charteris, Eric Ambler, Nevil Shute, Ian Fleming and John Buchan into bestsellers. The first book to sell a million copies was The Dam Busters by Paul Brickhill, first published in 1951. Brickhill was among the first to receive a Golden Pan award, for sales of one million copies. His fellow prize winners in 1964 were Alan Sillitoe for Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Ian Fleming, who won it seven times over. It was also given posthumously to Grace Metalious for Peyton Place.

      In the Sixties and Seventies authors such as Dick Francis, Wilbur Smith and Jack Higgins joined the fold, and 1972 saw the founding of the ground-breaking literary paperback imprint, Picador. Then-Editorial Director Clarence Paget signed up the third novel by the relatively unknown John le Carré, and transformed the author’s career. Pan also secured paperback rights in James Herriot’s memoirs of a Yorkshire vet in 1973, and a year later fought off tough competition to publish Jaws by Peter Benchley. Inspector Morse made his first appearance in Colin Dexter’s Last Bus to Woodstock in 1974.

      By 1976 Pan had sold over 30 million copies of its books and was outperforming all its rivals. Over the ensuing decades they published some of the biggest names in popular fiction, such as Jackie Collins, Dick Francis, Martin Cruz Smith and Colin Forbes.

      By the late Eighties, publishers had stopped buying and selling paperback licences and in 1987 Pan, now wholly owned by Macmillan, became its paperback imprint. This was a turbulent time of readjustment for Pan, but with characteristic energy and zeal Pan Macmillan soon established itself as one of the largest book publishers in the UK. By 2010, the advent of ebooks allowed the audience for popular fiction to grow dramatically, and Pan’s bestselling authors, such as Peter James, Jeffrey Archer, Ken Follett and Kate Morton – not to mention bestselling saga writers Margaret Dickinson and Annie Murray – now reach an even wider readership.

      Personally, my years working at Pan were incredibly exciting and a time of countless opportunities. The paperback market was exploding, and Pan was at the forefront. Sales were incredible – I remember selling close to a million copies of a Colin Dexter novella alone. I’m proud that today, Pan retains the same energy and vibrancy.

      In the year that Pan celebrates its 70th anniversary its mission remains the same – to publish the best popular fiction and non-fiction for the widest audience.

      David Macmillan

      TO

      THOMAS ARTHUR NELSON

      (Lothian And Border Horse)

      My Dear Tommy,

      You and I have long cherished an affection for that elemental type of tale which Americans call the ‘dime novel’ and which we know as the ‘shocker’—the romance where the incidents defy the probabilities, and march just inside the borders of the possible. During an illness last winter I exhausted my store of those aids to cheerfulness, and was driven to write one for myself. This little volume is the result, and I should like to put your name on it in memory of our long friendship, in the days when the wildest fictions are so much less improbable than the facts.

      J. B.

      Contents

      I. The Man Who Died

      II. The Milkman Sets Out on His Travels

      III. The Adventure of the Literary Innkeeper

      IV. The Adventure of the Radical Candidate

      V. The Adventure of the Spectacled Roadman

      VI. The Adventure of the Bald Archæologist

      VII. The Dry-Fly Fisherman

      VIII. The Coming of the Black Stone

      IX. The Thirty-Nine Steps

      X. Various Parties Converging on the Sea

      CHAPTER I

      THE MAN WHO DIED

      I returned from the City about three o’clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick, I couldn’t get enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun. Richard Hannay, I kept telling myself, you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and you had better climb out.

      It made me bite my lips to think of the plans I had been building up those last years in Bulawayo. I had got my pile—not one of the big ones, but good enough for me; and I had figured out all kinds of ways of enjoying myself. My father had brought me out from Scotland at the age of six, and I had never been home since; so England was a sort of Arabian Nights to me, and I counted on stopping there for the rest of my days.

      But from the first I was disappointed with it. In about a week I was tired of seeing sights, and in less than a month I had had enough of restaurants and theatres and race meetings. I had no real pal to go about with, which probably explains things. Plenty of people invited me to their houses, but they didn’t seem much interested in me. They would fling me a question or two about South Africa, and then get on their own affairs. A lot of Imperialist ladies asked me to tea to meet schoolmasters from New Zealand and editors from Vancouver, and that was the dismallest business of all. Here was I, thirty-seven years old, sound in wind and limb, with enough money to have a good time, yawning my head off all day. I had just about settled to clear out and get back to the veld, for I was the best bored man in the United Kingdom.

      That afternoon I had been worrying my brokers about investments to give my mind something to work on, and on my way home I turned into my club—rather a pot-house, which took in Colonial members. I had a long drink, and read the evening papers. They were full of the row in the Near East, and there was an article about Karolides, the Greek Premier. I rather fancied the chap. From all accounts he seemed the one big man in the show; and he played a straight game too, which was more than could be said for most of them. I gathered that they hated him pretty blackly in Berlin and Vienna, but that we were going to stick by him, and one paper said that he was the only barrier between Europe and Armageddon. I remember wondering if I could get a job in those parts. It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.

      About six o’clock I went home, dressed, dined at the Café Royal, and turned into a music-hall. It was a silly show, all capering women and monkey-faced men, and I did not stay long. The night was fine and clear as I walked back to the flat I had hired near Portland Place. The crowd surged past me on the pavements, busy, and chattering, and I envied the people for having something to do. These shop-girls and clerks and dandies and policemen had some interest in life that kept them going. I gave half a crown to a beggar because I saw him yawn; he was a fellow-sufferer. At Oxford Circus I looked up into the spring sky and I made a vow. I would give the Old Country another day to fit me into something; if nothing happened, I would take the next boat for the Cape.

      My flat was the first floor in a new block behind Langham Place. There was a common staircase, with a porter and a liftman at the entrance, but there was no restaurant or anything of that sort, and each flat was quite shut off from the others. I hate servants on the premises, so I had a fellow to look after me who came in by the day. He arrived before eight o’clock every morning and used to depart at seven, for I never dined at home.

      I was just fitting my key into the door when I noticed a man at my elbow. I had not seen him approach, and the sudden appearance made me start. He was a slim man, with a short brown beard and small, gimlety blue eyes. I recognised him as the occupant of a flat on the top floor, with whom I had passed the time of day on the stairs.

      Can I speak to you? he said. May I come in for a minute? He was steadying his voice with an effort, and his hand was pawing my arm.

      I got my door open and motioned him in. No sooner was he over the threshold than he made a dash for my back room, where I used to smoke and write my letters. Then he bolted back.

      Is the door locked? he asked feverishly, and he fastened the chain with his own hand.

      I’m very sorry, he said humbly. It’s a mighty liberty, but you looked the kind of man who would understand. I’ve had you in my mind all this week when things got troublesome. Say, will you do me a good turn?

      I’ll listen to you, I said. That’s all I’ll promise. I was getting worried by the antics of this nervous little chap.

      There was a tray of drinks on a table beside him, from which he filled himself a stiff whisky-and-soda. He drank it off in three gulps, and cracked the glass as he set it down.

      Pardon, he said, I’m a bit rattled tonight. You see, I happen at this moment to be dead.

      I sat down in an armchair and lit my pipe.

      What does it feel like? I asked. I was pretty certain that I had to deal with a madman.

      A smile flickered over his drawn face. I’m not mad—yet. Say, sir, I’ve been watching you, and I reckon you’re a cool customer. I reckon, too, you’re an honest man, and not afraid of playing a bold hand. I’m going to confide in you. I need help worse than any man ever needed it, and I want to know if I can count you in.

      Get on with your yarn, I said, and I’ll tell you.

      He seemed to brace himself for a great effort, and then started on the queerest rigmarole. I didn’t get hold of it at first, and I had to stop and ask him questions. But here is the gist of it:

      He was an American, from Kentucky, and after college, being pretty well off, he had started out to see the world. He wrote a bit, and acted as war correspondent for a Chicago paper, and spent a year or two in South-Eastern Europe. I gathered that he was a fine linguist, and had got to know pretty well the society in those parts. He spoke familiarly

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