Selected as one of the 100 best novels in English in The Guardian Recently returned from South Africa, adventurer Richard Hannay is bored with life, but after a chance encounter with an American who informs him of an assassination plot and is then promptly murdered in Hannay’s London flat, he becomes the obvious suspect and is forced to go on the run. He heads north to his native Scotland, fleeing the police and his enemies. Hannay must keep his wits about him if he is to warn the government before all is too late. This classic spy thriller sold a million copies before Buchan died in 1940, has been adapted countless times for film, television and the stage, and features the most exciting chase in the history of fiction. With an introduction by Stuart Kelly. This edition is authorised by the John Buchan Society.
This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!
South America is the setting for this adventure from the author of ‘The Thirty-nine Steps’. When Archie and Janet Roylance decide to travel to the Gran Seco to see its copper mines they find themselves caught up in dreadful danger; rebels have seized the city. Janet is taken hostage in the middle of the night and it is up to the dashing Don Luis de Marzaniga to aid her rescue.
In this, the fifth and final Richard Hannay adventure, John Buchan makes his hero an older, wiser and more yielding character (the book was written a full decade after the fourth Hannay novel). The Island of Sheep is one of Buchan's least known works, but it continues his popular style of high adventure, wonderfully descriptive prose, erudite literary references and veiled subtexts. In reviewing the book, The Times Literary Supplement described Buchan as "evidently very much more than a yarn-spinner; and yet, as a yarn-spinner, so complete a master".