Richard Hannay is the fictional secret agent created by Scottish novelist, John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir. The character is supposedly based upon Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside, from Edinburgh, who was a spy during the Boer War. The Three Graces, here in a painting by Sandro Botticelli, were the goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility in Greek mythology. ... Secret Agent is a 1936 British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. ... Royal motto: Nemo me impune lacessit (English: No one provokes me with impunity) Scotlands location within the UK Languages English, Gaelic, Scots Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow First Minister Jack McConnell Area - Total - % water Ranked 2nd UK 78,782 km² 1. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (August 26, 1875 – February 11, 1940), was a Scottish novelist and politician who served as Governor General of Canada. ... Field Marshal William Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside (b. ... Edinburgh (pronounced ), Dùn Èideann () in Scottish Gaelic, is the second-largest city in Scotland and its capital city. ... Spy and secret agent redirect here; for alternate use, see Spy (disambiguation) and Secret agent (disambiguation). ... Boer guerrillas during the Second Boer War There were two Boer wars, one from December 16, 1880-March 23, 1881 and the second from October 11, 1899-May 31, 1902 both between the British and the settlers of Dutch, French and German origin (called Boers, Afrikaners or Voortrekkers) in South...

Hannay appears in five novels:

• The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)
• Greenmantle (1916)
• Mr Standfast (1919)
• The Three Hostages (1924)
• The Island of Sheep (1936)

The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure novel by John Buchan, first published in 1915. ... 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Greenmantle is the second of the Richard Hannay novels by John Buchan, first published in 1916. ... 1916 (MCMXVI) is a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar) // Events January-February January 1 -The first successful blood transfusion using blood that had been stored and cooled. ... Mr. ... 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... The Three Hostages is the fourth Richard Hannay book by John Buchan. ... 1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Early Life

Richard Hannay was born in Scotland about 1877, his father was Scottish but his paternal grandparents were German and he was brought up to speak that language pretty fluently. At the age of six he joined his father in South Africa. He became a mining engineer spending three years prospecting for copper in German Damaraland and made a small fortune in Bulawayo. He took part in the Matabele wars and was an intelligence officer at Delagoa Bay in the Boer war. He returned to England in 1914, and the events of The 39 Steps take over. Royal motto: Nemo me impune lacessit (English: No one provokes me with impunity) Scotlands location within the UK Languages English, Gaelic, Scots Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow First Minister Jack McConnell Area - Total - % water Ranked 2nd UK 78,782 km² 1. ... 1877 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1979 Proposed Flag of Damaraland Damaraland was a bantustan in South West Africa (present-day Namibia), intended by the apartheid government to be a self-governing homeland for the Damara people. ... The City of Bulawayo is highlighted in this map of Zimbabwe. ... The Matabele are a branch of the Zulus who split from King Shaka in the early 1820s under the leadership of Mzilikazi, a former general in Shakas army. ... Maputo Bay, formerly Delagoa Bay (Port. ... Boer is the Afrikaans (and Dutch) word for farmer which came to denote the descendants of the Afrikaans-speaking migrating farmers of the expanding eastern Cape frontier. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the British Isles Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001 Census) – Density Ranked 1st UK... 1914 (MCMXIV) is a common year starting on Thursday. ... The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure novel by John Buchan, first published in 1915. ...

The Great War, 1914-1918

The first World War broke out three weeks after The 39 Steps ends and Hannay immediately joined the Army as a Captain. He suffered wounds to the leg and neck in the Battle of Loos in September 1915 by which time he is a Major. Greenmantle the follow on to The 39 Steps opens with him in Hampshire where he had come to convalesce after Loos. He earned a DSO (Distinguished Service Order) for his work as a spy during the events of Greenmantle in early 1916, which took place in wartime Europe and Turkey. Following this, he returned to regular service in the army and was rapidly promoted to the rank of brigadier-general. In early 1917, however, he was called back to the secret service to hunt an exceptionally dangerous man during the decisive months of World War I. During this time, told in Mr Standfast, he met and fell in love with his future wife, Mary Lamington, a young VAD nurse with remarkable brains and beauty. Later, in 1918, being promoted to major-general, he returned to the front lines and participated in the desperate fighting following the German's massive, last-ditch effort to win the war. The Battle of Loos was one of the major British offensives mounted on the Western Front in 1915 during World War I. The battle was the British component of the combined Anglo-French offensive known as the Second Battle of Artois. ... 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Greenmantle is the second of the Richard Hannay novels by John Buchan, first published in 1916. ... Hampshire (abbr. ...

Later Life

Soon after the war had ended, Hannay married Mary Lamington, and the following year had a son, Peter John Hannay. The boy was probably named after his two great friends John S. Blenkiron (an American spy who had often helped him) and Peter Pienaar, an old Boer scout who seems to have been a kind of father-figure to him. The family settled in Mary's old home in the Cotswolds, Fosse Manor, and Hannay (now a KCB) found peace and enjoyment as a kind of gentleman farmer. However, in 1920 or 1921, Hannay again found himself in an adventure, this time unravelling the mystery of three kidnappings in The Three Hostages.

His last adventure, The Island of Sheep, occurs some twelve years later on, when Hannay (now in his fifties) is called by an old oath to protect the son of a man he once knew, who safeguards the secret of the greatest treasure on earth. This book also focusses on Hannay's son, Peter John, now a bright but solemn teenager.

Even though the Hannay books stop short of World War 2, John Buchan's last novel, Sick Heart River (published just after its author died in 1940) offers a guess to Hannay's future: dying in Canada, Hannay's friend Sir Edward Leithen hears of the outbreak of war in Europe and guesses that many of his old friends, including Hannay, will have taken up arms again.

Impact on Espionage Fiction

Richard Hannay was one of the first modern spy thriller heroes, and as such has heavily influenced the genre. Today, considered in the light of mainstream espionage fiction, Hannay appears to be badly cliched--although one could point out that this is not his fault, as he was created well before his attributes became cliched.

In terms of personality, Hannay seems to be a stereotypical 'strong, silent' Britisher; with a tough physique and shrewd brains (although not brilliant); daring and resourceful. In terms of plot, he is often forced to conduct his activities on the wrong side of the law, hunted by the police and enemy alike; he falls in love with a beautiful (blonde) spy on his own side; he is often called upon to thwart the Germans in some evil plan certain to ruin England's war effort.

However, Hannay also retains some characteristics that sharply distinguish him from those who followed. He narrates all the books about him, and shows a much wider range of emotion than usually expected from a thriller hero. Nowhere near as hard-boiled as the detective of American noir fiction, Hannay is dependant upon his friends, and appears to be a religious man--like his author, Presbyterian. He is also increasingly shown to be something of a philosopher; he does not dehumanise his enemy, and idespite sharing some of the racial prejudices of his day, is open-minded towards Germans, pacifists, and similar demonised groups of the time.

Most remarkably in contrast to more recent thriller heroes, however, Hannay finds it extremely difficult to talk to women, suffering from months of nerves before declaring his love for Mary. Until she appears, he has no love interest (indeed, the first two books are very tautly constructed, and nowise suffer from an absence of romance), and when puzzling over his love for Mary, he remarks, "You can't live my kind of life for forty years, wholly among men, and be any good at pretty speeches to women." Being ignorant of women, however, does not make him mentally teenaged or immature: he is in fact a very shrewd and able judge of men, and often unusually wise for the hero of a romping thriller.