The Thirty-Nine Steps

⚖The case for it

Buchan wrote this in six weeks while sick in bed, and it still moves like it has a train to catch. The rescues fall into place too conveniently, and Scudder's suspicions carry the ugly bigotries of his class. Fine. Richard Hannay, an ordinary fellow hunted by police and killers at once, stays free by simply never halting, and that plain engine of forward motion seeded a century of chase stories, from wartime films to whatever thriller you put down last week. Read it fast and watch the template take shape.

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

The conspiracy Scudder whispers in chapter one comes wrapped in the casual antisemitism of 1915 clubland; the book half-retracts it later, but it is on the page. The plot runs on coincidence: whenever Hannay is cornered, Scotland provides a passing stranger with a motorcar. Hitchcock kept the title, invented the rest, and improved it, which is not a sentence one gets to write about many classics.

— the honest librarian