The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

The Thirty Nine Steps.

Buchan, John

William Blackwood & Sons, 1915.

First edition, first printing. 8vo. Blue boards with black titles. Housed in a bespoke quarter mid blue morocco clamshell case with raised bands & gilt titles. A near fine copy. Light wear to extremities. A couple of very light small translucent marks only. Small scratch to top edge of rear board. Internally fresh and clean with no inscriptions. Common tanning to leaf stock. Unusually, the original endpapers are unsplit. A lovely copy & much crisper than usually encountered.

A Haycraft Queen cornerstone. A World War I thriller whose protagonist, Richard Hannay returns to boring life in London from South Africa; he has a chance encounter with an American who outlines an assassination plot who is then promptly killed in Hannay's flat. As the obvious murderer Hannay goes on the run - he heads from London to his native Scotland but must keep his wits about him until he is able to warn the government hopefully before it’s too late! One of the classics of Twentieth Century fiction and brought numerous times to the stage, screen and radio most notably by Alfred Hitchcock.

Blanchard A32.

The item being auctioned is exactly as photographed. Scarce and valuable in this condition.

Many thanks to Julian Roberts for making this available to us & https://www.jrfinebooks.com/ to his website.