Thu 7 Sep 2017
A 1001 Midnights Review: JOHN BUCHAN – The 39 Steps.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[6] Comments
by Thomas Baird
JOHN BUCHAN – The 39 Steps. William Blackwood & Sons, UK, hardcover, 1915. Serialized in in Blackwood’s Magazine, UK, July-December 1915, under the pseudonym “H de V.” Previously serialized in All-Story Weekly, US, June 5 & 12, 1915. George H. Doran Co., US, hardcover, 1916. Houghton Mifflin, US, hardcover, 1919. Pocket #69, US, paperback, 1940. Reprinted many times since, and still in print today.
One of Alfred Hitchcock’s best films was The 39 Steps, which he took from John Buchan’s excellent adventure/spy novel. While Hitchcock’s 1935 film differs in many details and mechanisms from the book, both artists mined the same vein, and it’s easy to see what made Hitchcock want to work his transformations on this tale.
The romantic figure of the hero, Richard Hannay, is the perfect early example of the soldier of fortune. He’s sound of wind and limb, he’s courageous and slightly bored, and he is catapulted by treachery into facing a vast conspiracy that can determine the fate of the world. The writing doesn’t contain too much character to clutter up the plot, and there are no female roles in this adventure. (Hitchcock injected character into the story, partly by including female players in the game.)
Hannay sets out on the chase, first to hide out from the police, who want him for murder, and also from the German villains who want to stop the secret from getting out. By ruse and disguise, he traverses the well-described wilds of Scotland to stay undercover until the fatal hour. Falling in and out of the clutches of his facile fate, he enlists help as he runs, is chased by airplane, and is captured by his adversaries. This is where James Bond came from.
The Scottish author John Buchan, Baron Tweedsmuir, was also a political official and governor-general of Canada. He wrote many books of history and biography, as well as other adventures, which he called “shockers.” The best of the other Hannay books is Greenmantle (1916). Another hero, Leithen, is featured in other stories, and Buchan is powerfully descriptive of southern Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
September 7th, 2017 at 9:10 pm
Buchan is always fun to read, even today.
September 8th, 2017 at 5:47 pm
Any book from 1915 that’s still in print has got to have what’s called staying power.
September 8th, 2017 at 8:09 pm
Buchan’s sister Anna penned a dozen gentle domestic novels set (mostly) in Scotland, sometimes under the name of O. Douglas. They’re well-written and very enjoyable if you are in search of something soothing. A lot of her works are available online.
http://gutenberg.ca/index.html#catalogueB
September 8th, 2017 at 10:50 pm
There’s always something new to be learned. Thanks, Shay!
September 9th, 2017 at 12:46 am
Quite by accident, I was reading the latest issue of ALFRED HITCHCOCK MYSTERY MAGAZINE, and on the back cover, I spotted an ad for this year’s Bouchercon to be held in Toronto in October.
The Ghost of Honour is none other than John Buchan.
September 9th, 2017 at 1:45 am
The book has been filmed three times under its own title (this, with Kenneth More and Tania Elg, and with Robert Powell) and made into a television movie, radio adaptations of film and book, a hit play on Broadway and the West End, and Richard Hannay, aside from the sequels Buchan wrote appeared in a short lived series with Robert Powell called HANNAY and was played by Barry Foster in an adaptation of Buchan’s THE THREE HOSTAGES.
Hitchcock himself remade the film twice without attribution as SABOTEUR and NORTH BY NORTHWEST.
Countless other films and a whole genre of books have also borrowed from it including writers like Graham Greene, Eric Ambler, and Geoffrey Household. In addition to many other editions it was also printed by the Oxford University Press.
Not bad for a tale written by a wounded officer laid up and recovering from a wound in hospital in WWI.