Mr. Standfast

About “Mr. Standfast”

Published in 1919, Mr. Standfast is a thriller set during the latter half of the First World War. It is the third book in a series featuring Richard Hannay, who is called back from France to take part in a secret mission. He must find a German agent leaking information about war plans. Hannay disguises himself as a pacifist and travels through England and Scotland, then to the Swiss Alps and the Western Front. He is joined by Peter Pienaar and John Blenkiron, characters from Greenmantle, and Sir Walter Bullivant, from The Thirty Nine Steps. The title refers to a character in The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, and the book includes references to it, such as a codebook used to decode messages. The novel ends with a vivid account of the final battles of the First World War in Eastern France.