The Thirty-Nine Steps - Couverture souple

Buchan, John

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0099528398 ISBN 13 : 9780099528395

Editeur : Vintage Classics, 2011

Synopsis

John Buchan takes us back to Edwardian Britain on the eve of the First World War in the modern thriller "The Thirty-Nine Steps". An inexplicable murder drives the innocent Richard Hannay, on the run from a manhunt that never seems to end, to hide in remote Scottish moorland. Disguise and deception are his only weapons, as he struggles to decode the clues left by the murdered man to prevent the theft of naval secrets by an unfriendly foreign power. Buchan's narrative voice has the easy authority of a government insider, with the smooth assurance of a man in the know. "The Thirty-Nine Steps" was a powerful influence on the development of the detective novel, the action romance, and the spy story.

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

"Richard Hannay is, like his American brother Philip Marlowe, a modern knight errant. Charging through a hypocritical world, he is a seeker after truth with a boundless love of nature, a liking for simple pleasures and a hatred of pettiness and snobberies.... Buchan's novels are eerily resonant with today's troubles... Hannay is a hero for all times" (Observer)

"The book is even more fun than the films" (Guardian)

"The father of the modern espionage adventure" (Sunday Times)

"Buchan makes superb use of wild landscapes in this economical and gripping story" (The Times)

"Go into a bookshop today, pick up The Thirty-Nine Steps and I guarantee you will read it to the end. There is random and graphic violence, there is clear and present evil, eyes that are hooded 'like a bird of prey' - and a man 'skewered to the floor by a long knife through his heart'" (Daily Mail)

Biographie de l'auteur :

John Buchan was born in Perth in 1875, the son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, and educated at Glasgow. He gained a first at Oxford University, where he began writing, producing two volumes of essays, four novels and two collections of stories and poems before the age of twenty-five. He worked briefly as a lawyer, then served as a private secretary in the colonial administration of South Africa after the Boer War. During the war he worked both as a journalist and at Britain's War Propaganda Bureau, eventually becoming Director of Information. He published his most popular novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps, in 1915, and it has never since been out of print. In 1935 Buchan was elevated to the peerage, becoming Baron Tweedmuir of Elsfield, and later that year was appointed Governor General of Canada by King George V. He died on 11 February 1940.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Vintage Classics
• Date d'édition: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0099528398
• ISBN 13: 9780099528395
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 272