They were immensely popular when they were first published, and quite probably were translated into French before long. I havn't seen the Hitchcock movie, so I'll take your (various people's) word that there are strong similarities! :)īut it's quite possible that Hergé read the Hannay books. The crime-ring theme of The Black Island ('They've got agents all over the world!' springs to mind) is similar in a way to that of the criminals in those two Hanny novels, although in The Black Island they're forgers (at least, that's the group Tintin busts) and in the novels they're spies. Like Müller, the arch-enemy is living in the UK as a country gentleman (archaeologist rather than doctor though).

Standfast has one part which takes place on a Scottish island (no castle, though).īoth these Hannay novels have, as the enemy, a ring of spies and secret agents working for Germany, whose leader is the 'bald man who can hood his eyes like a hawk'. Standfast (both Richard Hannay novels) deal with Scotland in parts, and Mr.

Well.I started replying to the original email message, and happened to open the Tintinologist forum and see the post while I was doing it, so I figured I may as well post here instead.Īs a side, note, searching for 'tintin buchan' on Google brings my Good books list up as the second result! :)Īs regards the Tintin-Hannay connection (this is off the top of my head - I can research this in more depth, as I have the necessary books): The Thirty-Nine Steps and Mr.

The 39 Steps by John Buchan