Before You Begin

Before you begin.

Richard Hannay returns in the middle years of the First World War, when the front line is only one part of the struggle. Orders arrive in London rooms, secrets travel by train and motor-car, and a quiet corner of Britain can matter as much as a trench in France. John Buchan gives the spy story the pace of a chase while keeping its eye on weather, roads and the ordinary people caught beside great events.

Hannay moves through Scotland, England, France and the Alpine borderlands, following a mission whose real shape is deliberately hidden from him. Allies appear in unexpected places; identities and loyalties are never as simple as they first look. The book's title comes from Bunyan, a clue to the steadfastness Buchan values in people under pressure.

First published in 1919, Mr. Standfast is the third Richard Hannay novel. This edition preserves its twenty-two original chapters. Its maps, cast studies and wartime context plates introduce the territory without revealing later turns; each chapter recap unlocks only after its chapter has been read.