THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS
by JOHN BUCHAN
TO
THOMAS ARTHUR NELSON
(LOTHIAN AND BORDER HORSE)
My Dear Tommy,
You and I have long cherished an affection for that
elemental type of tale which Americans call the
'dime novel' and which we know as the 'shocker' - the
romance where the incidents defy the probabilities, and
march just inside the borders of the possible. During
an illness last winter I exhausted my store of those
aids to cheerfulness, and was driven to write one for
myself. This little volume is the result, and I should
like to put your name on it in memory of our long
friendship, in the days when the wildest fictions are so
much less improbable than the facts.
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