Hannay had previously appeared in The Thirty Nine Steps (1915), his most famous adventure in which he battles German spies across England and Scotland, and two books about his activities during the First World War, Greenmantle (1916) and Mr Standfast (1919).
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Next day he tells Greenslade all, and bids him remember where he drew his phrases, two of which, concerning a blind woman spinning and a barn in Norway, matched verses from the poem, while the third in Greenslade's speech referred to a curiosity shop run by an elderly Jew, which seems to bear no correspondence to the poem's reference to the "Fields of Eden".
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There, not wishing to be seen at the inn by Newhover, he approaches some locals to find lodging, and is amazed to meet Herr Gaudian, a German engineer he met during the events of Greenmantle.
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It is some time after the war, and Sir Richard Hannay is living in rural tranquility, having bought Fosse Manor and married Mary Lamington (both featured in Mr Standfast); they have a small son, named Peter John.