twas PHRASE it was twas but a dream of thee (The Good-Morrow by John Donne)
tyrannized VERB tyrannized means bullied or forced to do things against their will for people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannized over and put down (Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson)
’un NOUN ’un is a slang term for one – usually used to refer to a person She’s been thinking the old ’un (David Copperfield by Charles Dickens)
undistinguished ADJ undiscriminating or incapable of making a distinction between good and bad things their undistinguished appetite to devour everything (Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift)
use NOUN habit Though use make you apt to kill me (The Flea by John Donne)
vacant ADJ vacant usually means empty, but here Wordsworth uses it to mean carefree To vacant musing, unreproved neglect (The Prelude by William Wordsworth)
valetudinarian NOUN one too concerned with his or her own health. for having been a valetudinarian all his life (Emma by Jane Austen)
vamp VERB vamp means to walk or tramp to somewhere Well, vamp on to Marlott, will ’ee (Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy)
vapours NOUN the vapours is an old term which means unpleasant and strange thoughts, which make the person feel nervous and unhappy and my head was full of vapours (Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe)
vegetables NOUN here vegetables means plants the other vegetables are in the same proportion (Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift)
venturesome ADJ if you are venturesome you are willing to take risks he must be either hopelessly stupid or a venturesome fool (Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë)
verily ADJ verily means really or truly though I believe verily (Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe)
vicinage NOUN vicinage is an area or the residents of an area and to his thought the whole vicinage was haunted by her. (Silas Marner by George Eliot)
victuals NOUN victuals means food grumble a little over the victuals (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)
vintage NOUN vintage in this context means wine Oh, for a draught of vintage! (Ode on a Nightingale by John Keats)
virtual ADJ here virtual means powerful or strong had virtual faith (The Prelude by William Wordsworth)
vittles NOUN vittles is a slang word which means food There never was such a woman for givin’ away vittles and drink (Little Women by Louisa May Alcott)
voided straight PHRASE voided straight is an old expression which means emptied immediately see the rooms be voided straight (Doctor Faustus 4.1 by Christopher Marlowe)
wainscot NOUN wainscot is wood panel lining in a room so wainscoted means a room lined with wooden panels in the dark wainscoted parlor (Silas Marner by George Eliot)
walking the plank PHRASE walking the plank was a punishment in which a prisoner would be made to walk along a plank on the side of the ship and fall into the sea, where they would be abandoned about hanging, and walking the plank (Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson)
want VERB want means to be lacking or short of The next thing wanted was to get the picture framed (Emma by Jane Austen)
wanting ADJ wanting means lacking or missing wanting two fingers of the left hand (Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson)
wanting, I was not PHRASE I was not wanting means I did not fail I was not wanting to lay a foundation of religious knowledge in his mind (Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe)
ward NOUN a ward is, usually, a child who has been put under the protection of the court or a guardian for his or her protection I call the Wards in Jarndcye. The are caged up with all the others. (Bleak House by Charles Dickens)
waylay VERB to waylay someone is to lie in wait for them or to intercept them I must go up the road and waylay him (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)
weazen NOUN weazen is a slang word for throat. It actually means shrivelled You with a uncle too! Why, I knowed you at Gargery’s when you was so small a wolf that I could have took your weazen betwixt this finger and thumb and chucked you away dead (Great Expectations by Charles Dickens)
wery ADV very Be wery careful o’ vidders all your life (Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens) See wibrated
wherry NOUN wherry is a small swift rowing boat for one person It was flood tide when Daniel Quilp sat himself down in the wherry to cross to the opposite shore. (The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens)
whether PREP whether means which of the two in this example we came in full view of a great island or continent (for we knew not whether) (Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift)
whetstone NOUN a whetstone is a stone used to sharpen knives and other tools I dropped pap’s whetstone there too (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)
wibrated VERB in Dickens’s use of the English language ‘w’ often replaces ‘v’ when he is reporting speech. So here ‘wibrated’ means ‘vibrated’. In Pickwick Papers a judge asks Sam Weller (who constantly confuses the two letters) ‘Do you spell is with a ‘v’ or a ‘w’?’ to which Weller replies ‘That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord’ There are strings … in the human heart that had better not be wibrated’ (Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens)
wicket NOUN a wicket is a little door in a larger entrance Having rested here, for a minute or so, to collect a good burst of sobs and an imposing show of tears and terror, he knocked loudly at the wicket; (Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens)
without CONJ without means unless You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)
wittles NOUN vittles is a slang word which means food I live on broken wittles – and I sleep on the coals (David Copperfield by Charles Dickens) See wibrated
woo VERB courts or forms a proper relationship with before it woo (The Flea by John Donne)
words, to have PHRASE if you have words with someone you have a disagreement or an argument I do not want to have words with a young thing like you. (Black Beauty by Anna Sewell)
workhouse NOUN workhouses were places where the homeless were given food and a place to live in return for doing very hard work And the Union workhouses? demanded Scrooge. Are they still in operation? (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens)
yawl NOUN a yawl is a small boat kept on a bigger boat for short trips. Yawl is also the name for a small fishing boat She sent out her yawl, and we went aboard (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)
yeomanry NOUN the yeomanry was a collective term for the middle classes involved in agriculture The yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do (Emma by Jane Austen)
yonder ADV yonder means over there all in the same second we seem to hear low voices in yonder! (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Life & Times
Buchan’s Inspiration
There is something in the very title The Thirty-Nine Steps that makes it memorable even before having read the book. In fact, those who have not read the book still have the pleasure of wondering what the 39 steps might be. Are they a metaphor for 39 stages in life perhaps, are they a series of 39 instructions, are they literally 39 steps that need ascending or descending, or are they 39 steps needed to pace out a distance from one point to another? John Buchan chose his title well when he published his masterpiece of a thriller in 1915, with the title’s ambiguity gripping the reader from the first page.
Buchan was inspired to write The Thirty-Nine Steps at the outbreak of World War I. He wrote for the British War Propaganda Bureau at the time and was well aware of the espionage that went on in 1914. The hero of the story, Richard Hannay, is inadvertently caught up in a world of espionage just before the war. He finds himself a fugitive on the run, suspected of a murder, but determined to complete a mission handed to him by the killed agent, Scudder. His mission is to prevent the assassination of the Greek Premier, or so he thinks.
When Hannay reads
Scudder’s notebook he comes across references to a group called the Black Stone and the phrase ‘the thirty-nine steps’. He suspects that the Germans may be planning a secret invasion of British soil. By this point Hannay is playing cat and mouse with the authorities pursuing him and it becomes apparent that there are people in high places on both sides. Eventually he makes contact with those he needs to and a national disaster is averted. The troublemakers are caught and arrested, thereby preventing the Germans from getting their hands on British military secrets and thwarting their ambitions of invasion.
At the time of publication World War I was yet to be concluded and Buchan’s novel had immediate appeal. In reality the Germans of the Second Reich had no intention of crossing The Channel, but the threat of invasion and conquest was something that ran deep in the souls and the history of the British. Of course, following World War I it was only a matter of two decades before the threat of war loomed again. This time the Third Reich would have its sights set firmly on adding Britain to its territory and Buchan’s book took on a new lease of life. In 1935 Alfred Hitchcock, with his eye on the zeitgeist, released the first film version of The Thirty-Nine Steps to an audience only too aware that the Nazis had seized power in Germany two years before and a baleful future lurked on the horizon.
Buchan himself was a multifaceted personality. He was born in Perth, Scotland, and studied Classics at Oxford University before initially working in law and then sidestepping into civil service. His competence in the spheres of politics and diplomacy led him to become Governor General of Canada, yet during his very public career he managed to continue with his writing in private. He wrote around 100 works between 1896 and 1940, including fiction and nonfiction. His first job was as private secretary to a colonial administrator in Southern Africa. It was here that he encountered Edmund Ironside, the inspiration for the characterization of Richard Hannay in The Thirty-Nine Steps. Ironside was a British Military Officer who had spent time as a spy and would go on to play significant roles in both world wars. He possessed a distinctive blend of coolness and bravery, which Buchan knew would be perfect for Hannay. Ironside became Commander-in-Chief Home Forces in 1940, where he was responsible for anti-invasion defences – Buchan would, surely, have enjoyed the irony.
When Buchan published The Thirty-Nine Steps, Europe was in turmoil. The many thousands who had willingly signed up to fight the Germans were learning that warfare was not romantic but rather the nearest thing to hell on earth. Furthermore, the technological transition of the age created a new kind of warfare, where troops wallowed in muddy trenches for month after month, occasionally being picked off by sniper and blown apart by artillery. Or being ordered to make futile advances into no man’s land where death was almost a certainty. Resentment of the ‘Hun’ was growing and Buchan released the perfect book, as affirmation to the reader that the Germans were not to be trusted and that the English would always find a way to win in the end. This popular theme of outwitting a dishonourable and devious foe, which proved so effective for Buchan, has continued with similar stories set during World War II and the Cold War, providing plenty of potential for tales of conspiracy, double dealing and double crossing, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Buchan’s ‘Thriller’ and its Influences
It seems fair to say that Buchan’s work was the earliest example of the thriller, although he is himself known to have used the word ‘shocker’. His own prototype for Hannay came in 1910 when he published his first adventure novel Prester John, featuring a character named David Crawfurd. Buchan had an instinct for building tension or suspense into his stories, so that the reader feels compelled to continue turning the pages. If there is a definition of the thriller genre, then it must be that unexpected events occur in rapid sequence and that the protagonist is placed in perpetual jeopardy, so that the reader has a need to know what happens next for fear that their hero may not survive. Buchan spawned many thriller subgenres – psychological, political, pursuit, paranoid and so on. They all explore different territory, but all share a hero, or antihero, who is pitted against an enemy or villain. This basic theme of ‘them and us’ is at the core of the human condition, which is why it is immediately appealing. Even Westerns might be thought of as ‘prairie thrillers’ because the American Indians represent ‘them’ and the cowboys represent ‘us’. Add to that model characters who may not be what they seem, and the tension rises because the reader is no longer sure who to trust. The object of the thriller writer is to get cortisol, adrenaline and endorphins coursing through the blood of the reader, as if they are part of the action. That way the reader elicits physical reactions to the information reaching the brain and engages. Of course, this also means that the reader desires a satisfying outcome to make the mental and physical experience worthwhile, and that is what the best thrillers do.
Buchan capitalized on the success of The Thirty-Nine Steps by writing four further novels about Richard Hannay – two set during the war and two post-war. The character of Hannay was part sleuth and part action hero, something like a cross between Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. Sherlock Holmes books had been in print since the 1880s and Buchan was clearly influenced by Conan Doyle’s hero. Similarly, Ian Fleming developed the prototype model of Buchan’s Hannay to create his Bond.
Buchan’s immediate literary successor was George Household, who specialized in the ‘man on the run’ thriller genre. His most celebrated novel is Rogue Male (1939) which was adapted into a film titled Man Hunt. Many of Household’s 28 novels feature a central character being pursued. There are many other authors who attempted to write in the same genre, post-Buchan. Despite their best efforts, though, it can be argued that none has surpassed The Thirty-Nine Steps, both in content and in title.
There is a lot to be said in praise of Buchan’s prose style. It has a particularly contemporary feel despite being a century old. One line spoken by Scudder sets the mood and the agenda from the very start of the book: ‘I’ve been watching you, and I reckon you’re a cool customer. I reckon, too, you’re an honest man, and not afraid of playing a bold hand. I’m going to confide in you. I need help worse than any man ever needed it, and I want to know if I can count you in.’ Later Hannay narrates: ‘I snapped the switch, but there was nobody there. Then I saw something in the far corner which made me drop my cigar and fall into a cold sweat. My guest was lying sprawled on his back. There was a long knife through his heart which skewered him to the floor.’ The stark imagery and spare language used by Buchan intensifies the graphic scene set before the reader.
HISTORY OF COLLINS
In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.
Soon after, William published the first Collins novel, Ready Reckoner, however it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.
Aged 30, William’s son, William II took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly ‘Victorian’ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and Pilgrim’s Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopaedias and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases and Collins also held the mono
poly on scripture writing at the time.
In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of ‘books for the millions’ was developed. Affordable editions of classical literature were published and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everyman’s Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.
HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition – publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.
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Harper Press
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This Harper Press paperback edition published 2012
John Buchan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Life & Times section © Gerard Cheshire
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from
Collins English Dictionary
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