Mr. Standfast

Mr. Standfast is the third of five Richard Hannay novels by John Buchan first published in 1919 by Hodder & Stoughton London. It is one of two Hannay novels set during the First World War the other being Greenmantle (1916); Hannay's first and best-known adventure The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) is set in the period immediately before the war started. The title refers to a character in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to which there are many other references in the novel; Hannay uses a copy of Pilgrim's Progress to decipher coded messages from his contacts and letters from his friend Peter Pienaar. During the later years of the First World War Brigadier-General Hannay is recalled from active service on the Western Front to undertake a secret mission hunting for a dangerous German agent at large in Britain. Hannay is required to work undercover disguised as a pacifist roaming the country incognito to investigate a German spy and his agents and then heads to the Swiss Alps to save Europe from being overwhelmed by the German army.