Major-General Sir Richard Hannay is the fictional secret agent created by Scottish novelist John Buchan and further made popular by the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film The 39 Steps.
Hannay is pre-eminent among early spy-thriller heroes. Caught up in the first of these five gripping adventures just before the outbreak of war in 1914, he manages to thwart the enemy's evil plan and solve the mystery of the "thirty-nine steps".
In his autobiography, Memory Hold-the-Door, Buchan suggests that the character is based, in part, on Edmund Ironside, from Edinburgh, a spy during the Second Boer War.
Contents:
The Thirty-Nine Steps,
Greenmantle,
Mr Standfast,
The Three Hostages,
The Courts of the Morning,
The Island of Sheep.