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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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The Thirty-Nine Steps
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(1915) The thriller by John *Buchan which introduced his patriotic and resourceful hero, Richard Hannay. News of an elaborate international plot to invade Britain is given him by an American, who is then found murdered. Suspicion falls on Hannay, who has to outwit both the enemy and the police in his efforts to clarify his information and bring it to Scotland Yard, thus saving the country (the thirty-nine steps, one of his clues, lead up to the house occupied by the villains on the southeast coast). The film of 1935, with Robert Donat as Hannay and with considerable alterations to the plot, was one of Hitchcock's early successes.
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