The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure novel by Scottish author John Buchan. It was serialized in All-Story Weekly (5 – 12 June 1915) and Blackwood's Magazine (credited to "H de V.", July – September 1915) before being published in book form in October 1915 by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh. It is the first of the five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a miraculous knack for getting himself out of tricky situations.