The 39 Steps

Sir Walter awaited me in a dusky dining-room where a little round table was lit with silver candles. The sight of him— so respectable and established and secure, the embodiment of law and government and all the conventions—took me aback and made me feel an interloper.

I remember wondering if I could get a job in those parts. It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.

The novel’s timeline shadows the July Crisis of 1914, when a localized assassination ignited global war. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb linked to the Black Hand. Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia on 23 July led to declarations of war—Austria on Serbia (28 July), Germany on Russia (1 August) and France (3 August), and Britain on Germany (4 August) following the invasion of Belgium. Buchan’s invented assassination of the Greek premier "Karolides" prefigures this domino logic: a Balkan shock used by great powers to rearrange Europe.

The book highlights resourcefulness, observation, and resolve under pressure, set against anxieties about prewar espionage and porous borders.