Editing The Thirty-Nine Steps (section)

== Dedication ==
Buchan dedicated the novel to his friend [[Thomas Arthur Nelson]], saying "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'&nbsp;— 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.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hDy1mgMwIgcC&q=the+thirty-nine+steps |title=The Thirty-Nine Steps |last1=Buchan |first1=John |editor-last1=Harvie |editor-first1=Christopher |year=1993 |publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-150028-2 }}</ref>