Richard Hannay Complete Collection: The Thirty-nine Steps, Greenmantle, Mr Standfast, The Three Hostages, The Island of Sheep, The Courts of the Morning

Richard Hannay #1-6

by John Buchan

This volume contains the six novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a miraculous knack for getting himself out of sticky situations. Possibly the best known character created by famous Scottish novelist, historian and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, John Buchan.

The six novels in this volume are The Thirty-nine Steps (1915), Greenmantle (1916), Mr Standfast (1919), The Three Hostages (1924), The Island of Sheep (The Man from the Norlands) (1936) and The Courts of the Morning (1929).

Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1932

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

John Buchan was a Scottish novelist, historian, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation.
As a youth, Buchan began writing poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, publishing his first novel in 1895 and ultimately writing over a hundred books of which the best known is The Thirty-Nine Steps. After attending Glasgow and Oxford universities, he practised as a barrister. In 1901, he served as a private secretary to Lord Milner in southern Africa towards the end of the Boer War. He returned to England in 1903, continued as a barrister and journalist. He left the Bar when he joined Thomas Nelson and Sons publishers in 1907. During the First World War, he was, among other activities, Director of Information in 1917 and later Head of Intelligence at the newly-formed Ministry of Information. He was elected Member of Parliament for the Combined Scottish Universities in 1927.
In 1935, King George V, on the advice of Canadian Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, appointed Buchan to succeed the Earl of Bessborough as Governor General of Canada and two months later raised him to the peerage as 1st Baron Tweedsmuir. He occupied the post until his death in 1940. Buchan promoted Canadian unity and helped strengthen the sovereignty of Canada constitutionally and culturally. He received a state funeral in Canada before his ashes were returned to the United Kingdom.

Reviews

[Valerie Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

When ordinary men were superheroes

To begin with, why I'm giving this four stars instead of five . For some reason in this collection they have the stories out of order, the fifth book should be The Courts of Morning and the sixth Sheep Island. Unfortunately, I didn't discover this until I was halfway into Sheep Island. It appears that the Courts of Morning was a last-minute addition because the editing of it is absolutely atrocious .

Now for the good stuff, I really love the period between right before World War I and the end of World War II. Everything is either black or white, they're only the good guys or the bad guys. Of course, some of these viewpoints were horrible, especially the racism , but it's still allows for some very interesting characters . Richard Hannay is certainly one of those.

These books are filled with fascinating characters that keep you from going from one book to the next, wondering what will become of them. And they're written in that wonderful English of turn-of-the-century, it makes you realize how much the language has degraded. Thank heavens for the dictionary button on my Kindle!

Wonderful insight into a far-off time period, it was with great sadness that I finished the last book. Well worth the read! !

[Mark Zodda · Rating 2 out of 5]

First a couple of notes on the kindle edition. For some reason the final two novels ("The Island of Sheep" and "The Courts of the Morning") are out of order both chronologically by when they were written and when they take place in the characters' timelines. "The Courts of the Morning" takes place before "The Island of Sheep" and "The Island of Sheep" refers to events that occurred in "The Courts of the Morning." Not sure why the editors placed these novels out of order in the collection. While the other books were well-edited and mostly mistake-free, "The Courts of the Morning" was riddled with errors that almost made it unreadable and very often it was impossible to work out the meaning due to the nature of the mistakes.
John Buchan is a racist and clearly revels in his supposed superiority to people like me who come from mixed races and backgrounds other than his own. His attitudes are offensive and have left me with feelings of disgust and distain for the British Empire.
With all of that in mind, once you get beyond Buchan's racist characterizations, his stories provide a window into a period and a people that I knew little about. The stories are mostly overly long, but entertaining.

[Michael Shaoul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Courts of Yawning

A rambling yarn shot through with Buchan's dubious views on race and politics. Simply too long for a story whose ending offers no surprises for anyone who believes in Buchan's idea of a happy ending. The most I interesting part is the concept of guerrilla warfare battling against a WW1 army and here Buchan shows his intelligence just as Greenmantle in its arabist manner presales jihadist tactics of today. Overall not worth the time to finish but an easy enough read apart from the silly Scottish dialect.

[Michelle Brock]

WW1 era spy novels originally published in 1915 following. This was the first time I read the lesser known John Buchan books. They aren't as good as the first three, but they're interesting to see the later years of Richard Hannay.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great adventure reads. Well written.

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Adventure

Six books total. Each an enjoyable read with The courts of the morning my favorite. The prose is a bit thick but readable

[KC Ajith]

39 steps and beyond

39 steps, by John Buchan was the first book that I read, long time back. I was mesmerised by the plot and the tight story telling. I saw the two adapted movies of the same name to, but felt that book was always better. When I saw this collection of stories, I jumped at it. It has been excellent reading throughout.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first three of the books in this collection were rereads for me (The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle, and ). Most of the others were shorter - novellas rather than novels. The first three were set just before and during World War I, the remainder in the 1920s. The modern reader will need to overlook the casual racism, anti-Semitism, and general xenophobia which was endemic in much British popular fiction of the time (cf. early Agatha Christie!) If you’re able to do that, you can enjoy some ripping yarns. A couple of aspects of Buchen’s tales I especially enjoyed were his obvious love of nature — much description of the settings of Hannay’s adventures and how landscape affected what he was able to do — and, the presence, I think unusual for the time, of strong and active female characters. The one book I did not enjoy was The Courts of the Morning, which features Hannay’s friends but not Richard Hannay himself. It’s set in an imaginary South American country (maybe Argentina?) and goes on far too long with a lot of military strategy. I’d skip it if I were you (though I did plow through to the end).

[Laurel Purdy · Rating 5 out of 5]

All these stories are vastly entertaining, well crafted, and worth reading!
I had to buy a hard copy of Courts of the Morning, however, so that I could see the map.