Book review: The Thirty-Nine Steps revisited

By Reviewer: Robert Willson
Updated February 5 2015 - 10:08am, first published January 24 2015 - 11:45pm
Man of action: John Buchan was a prolific writer, but it is his adventure stories that are best remembered.
Man of action: John Buchan was a prolific writer, but it is his adventure stories that are best remembered.

Many people look blank when I mention John Buchan. But lots of people seem to know the wry comment on life that he coined long ago. He wrote in a novel entitled Mr Standfast: "It's a great life – if you don't weaken!" And everyone seems to have heard of the famous thriller he wrote almost exactly a century ago, just as World War I was coming to the boil. The book, and the many films and TV adaptations of it, is The Thirty-Nine Steps.