This edition contains the original and unabriged text of John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps.The Thirty-Nine Steps, an adventure novel by the Scottish author John Buchan, is the first of five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a miraculous knack for getting himself out of sticky situations.The novel formed the basis for a number of film adaptations and appeared on the BBC's list of the UK's "best-loved novels."The novel was his first "shocker", as he called it - a story combining personal and political dramas. The novel marked a turning point in Buchan's literary career and introduced his adventuring hero, Richard Hannay. He described a "shocker" as an adventure where the events in the story are unlikely and the reader is only just able to believe that they really happened.