The island of sheep

`They were perhaps three hundred yards away from me, but their personalities seemed as vivid as if they were in the same room.

I had an overpowering impression of a burning vitality which was also evil, a glowing, incandescent evil.'The Island of Sheep (1936) is John Buchan's last thriller, featuring the return of Richard Hannay, the hero of The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle, Mr Standfast and The Three Hostages , from a comfortable retirement.

Hannay redeems his promise to protect the son of an old acquaintance from a sinister conspiracy, and the action moves rapidly from England through the Scottish Borders to the Island of Sheep in the remote Norlands, where Hannay and his friends turn at last to confront their enemy.

Memorable for its vivid evocations of place, the novel constitutes a complex reflection upon its own position at the end of Buchan's career and at the end of a modern Scottish tradition of adventure romances.This is the first critical edition of The Island of Sheep , and the introduction explores the novel's themes and concerns in relation to Buchan's previous works.This book is intended for twentieth-century fiction courses; the general reader.