It is a book that has never been out of print and has inspired numerous film and TV adaptations over the years.
But while most people will have undoubtedly caught this gripping spy drama on their TV screens at some point in their lives, many might be unaware of its local roots.
John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps was first published as a serial adventure story in Edinburgh-based Blackwood’s Magazine from August to September 1915, before appearing in book form that same October, published by William Blackwood & Sons.
It was an immediate bestseller, shifting 25,000 copies in the first three weeks.
The novel, which has withstood the test of time, is commemorating its centenary this year, bringing renewed interest in Buchan’s tale.
But for those who may be about to read it for the first time, there might be a surprise or two in store if they have only ever seen the plot unfold on the TV screen.
Many of the best-remembered parts of the story – the hero handcuffed to a female accomplice, that iconic chase across the Forth Bridge – actually come from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film version.
That – along with subsequent adaptations, including the West End hit show and the BBC’s 2008 version, which was partly filmed in Edinburgh – have been very important in perpetuating JB’s memory, according to Buchan’s granddaughter, the author Ursula Buchan.
“Which is fine,” she says, “provided that no one is under the illusion that the film is very like the book in plot, because it’s not.”
Another granddaughter, Lady Deborah Stewartby, adds: “My grandmother was horrified by what they’d done, but ‘JB’ – as he’s known in the family – was just delighted that people should watch it.”
John Buchan’s second son William, who died in 2008, accepted that Hitchcock had no choice but to make some changes – not least because the British Government had suggested that, with Hitler then rising to power, “hostile representations” of Germany were “highly undesirable”.
“This was where the genius of Hitchcock came into play,” William wrote in his 1982 memoir. “He kept the dramatic core of the book, but transposed the action into a contemporary world, where the enemy was never actually identified and there was no explicit mention of war.
“And he added a light and amusing love interest perfectly suited to the talents of Robert Donat as (hero) Hannay, and the beautiful Madeleine Carrol as his unwilling accomplice.
“The film was a triumphant success both in Britain and America, and one which may be said to have given Hitchcock the real impetus to his great career.”
Yet, apart from being one of the earliest examples of the “man-on-the-run” thriller genre still popular with Hollywood, and the fact that the book has never been out of print, why should anybody want to read The Thirty-Nine Steps today?
“It’s a short episodic book with lots of short chapters and therefore quick and easy to read,” explains Buchan biographer Andrew Lownie.
“Its first person narration adds to the sense of pace and authority.”
“It’s a very well-written book, especially in its description of landscape at which Buchan excelled, with a very strong narrative pace which lifts it above the genre,” he adds. “It’s a rattling good yarn where one wants to know what happens next.”
Academic Dr Kate Macdonald agrees. “The pacing is possibly the most modern thing about it – apart from the spy plane! Buchan took the adventure romance to a new level by losing Victorian ponderousness and writing a story that read at the speed at which its readers were now living.”
“He gave the popular novel permission to be complex and to be well-written, by not talking down to his readers.”
Of course, some aspects have undoubtedly aged; it’s still a book of its time.
“It was in the tradition of ‘War against Germany’ thrillers, notably Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands,” says Ursula Buchan.
“However, there are some very modern things in it, notably fast motor cars and small aeroplanes, and there is also intriguing information on codes and cyphers.
“His influence on later spy fiction is well-documented and acknowledged – by Graham Greene, Geoffrey Household, Ian Fleming and John le Carre, for example.
“One American academic has written that the modern development of the spy novel would not have been the same without Buchan.”
Buchan would later describe writing the likes of The Thirty-Nine Steps as light-hearted relief that helped pay for his children’s education. The novels he really cared about were historical novels, such as Witch Wood.
Yet his granddaughter Lady Stewartby, who helps run The John Buchan Story museum in Peebles, nevertheless sees many of her grandfather’s more literary themes in The Thirty-Nine Steps.
“Of course, parts of it are very dated. It’s of its time, but it’s of our time as well,” says Lady Stewartby.
“There were two things JB really wanted to get across (in his fiction); firstly that the veneer of civilisation is very, very thin; and secondly that evil can come in very attractive guises.
“The BBC pulled (an adaptation of) his novel Greenmantle after the 7/7 bombings, because that was JB predicting the rise of fundamentalism. The Thirty-Nine Steps is of its time, but it’s of our time as well.”
DID YOU KNOW?
• Buchan considered calling the novel The Black Stone and The Kennels of War.
• Blackwood’s Magazine published the story under the pseudonym “H de V”.
• Buchan dedicated the novel to his Edinburgh friend Tommy Nelson.
• John Buchan (1875-1940) was born in Perth, the son of a Cavinist presbyterian minister, and died Lord Tweedsmuir, Governor-General of Canada.
First published by Edinburgh Evening News, 15 August 2015.
