Books

All first editions, first impressions. Major-General Sir Richard Hannay is the fictional secret agent created by Buchan. In his autobiography, Memory Hold-the-Door, Buchan suggests that the character is based, in part, on Edmund Ironside, from Edinburgh, a spy during the Second Boer War. Together 7 works, octavo. Attractively bound in recent dark blue morocco, titles and decoration to spines gilt, raised bands, single rule to boards gilt, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Mild toning to page edges of The Thirty-Nine Steps, otherwise an excellent set.

The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure novel by the Scottish author John Buchan. It first appeared as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine in August and September 1915 before being published in book form in October that year by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh. It is the first of five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a knack for getting out of sticky situations.