The Thirty-Nine Steps

by John Buchan

Book Overview

In this fast-paced spy thriller, a self-described ordinary fellow stumbles upon a plot involving not only espionage and murder but also the future of Britain itself. Richard Hannay arrives in London on the eve of World War I, where he encounters an American agent seeking help in preventing a political assassination. Before long, Hannay finds himself in possession of a little black book that holds the key to the conspiracy -- and on the run from both...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486282015
• ISBN13: 9780486282015
• Release Date: October 2010
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.2" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher

Customer Reviews

The Thirty-nine Steps by John Buchan, retold by Nick Bullard

I am an ESL teacher and read this book to see if it is appropriate for ESL learners and interesting. The book moves fast with a lot of chasing action as the main character is on the run through Scotland and England. It's interesting and despite having fewer descriptive words to work with, you still get a sense of the character's personality. I recommend this book for English learners, but with a few precautions. There are a lot of characters that come in and out of the story, so that may be distracting and make it harder to follow. Also, it is written in British English, so a few words may need to be looked up in the dictionary. Another issue is that the action takes place in Scotland and England with some place names. It would have been nice to have a map in the front of the book to get a sense of the main character's movements throughout the book. Overall, I recommend this book to English language learners, and I hope the book would affect them as it has me in now wanting to see the Alfred Hitchcock movie and see how they compare.

On the Run from German Spies

This classic spy novel published in 1915 is a fine read for the twenty-first century; it's fast-moving with a driving narrative. I read this book when I was a kid and loved it. Three movie versions have been made, the most famous being the Hitchcock version of 1935. In November of 2006 in London I saw and greatly enjoyed a hilarious stage version based more upon the movie treatment than the book. It had only four characters, and two of them were called Clowns. The Clowns played all sorts of characters in the play including cops and spies. A female actress played three roles. The stage effects simulating the movie action were wonderful. It is scheduled for a Broadway production during the 2007-2008 season. Any similarity between the play and the novel are purely coincidental. In the novel there is no love interest, and there are no important female characters, but in the stage and movie versions women play key roles. In most of the book Richard Hannay is on the run, mainly in Scotland, a fugitive from the police and the German spies. Most people he meets aid him in his flight. He's a cunning man who can decipher coded messages and foil plots that are a lead-up to the First World War. The book is still worth reading and is a good diversion. Don't expect subtlety, but do expect a clever yarn, a well-told tale.

An Exciting Ride of Suspense

This book is an exciting story of a man called Richard Hannay who is led into a secret by a mysterious man called Scudder who was killed in his apartment. Now Hannay must be on the aware of the police who suspect him as a killer and he is in fear of his life from the secret whom people would kill for.This engages in a serious manhunt across Scotland. This a well written thriller definitely a must read

Taut, Smart, Dramatic Little Thriller

It's not hard to see why Hitchcock made John Buchan's "The Thirty-Nine Steps" into a film (which I have not seen). It's a taut, smart, dramatic little thriller, full of the unlikely events Hitch really grooved on. I was quite pleased at the end of this breezy novel, which is a pretty obvious source of LeCarre, Fleming, et al. It's also a marvelous example of fiction incorporating the zeit geist of the era in which it was written. Richard Hannay, late of South Africa, finds himself terribly bored in London, 1914 (which, having been to London, can't possibly imagine), until he meets the mysterious Franklin Scudder. Allowing Scudder to live in his home, Hannay is astonished by Scudder's bizarre raving tale of an elaborate conspiracy to initiate war among the European powers. Hannay takes this story with a bit of skeptisism until he comes home one night to find Scudder pinned to the floor by a knife. Thus begins an elaborate and episodic chase, as Hannay, fully believing Scudder's claims, must run from the police and from the conspiracy, the Black Stone. Buchan is most successful in creating Hannay's elaborate schemes and escapes. Hannay is a likeable hero, so the reader readily roots for him. Further, the villains, while never fully developed (it is Hannay's story), make for sinister threats just off-page, so to speak. The denouement is satisfying, if more than a little tragic. This book is also fascinating because the conspiracy, with changes in detail, basically mirrors the events that ignited World War I. Various radical interests seek to assassinate a prominent figure (although Princip had no idea of the consequences of assassinating Franz Ferdinand), and trip the various political alliances to start a war. Thus, Buchan incorporates the weird mixture of patriotism and panic that most historians point to when they chronicle the First World War. The downside of that zeit geist is that Buchan incorporates a certain level of anti-Semitism, some of it being of dubious necessity. Scudder is convinced that Jews are responsible, because they want Russia to be destroyed by the war. While we later learn that Scudder had prejudices against Jews, Scudder himself acknowledges the anti-Semitic history of Russia. Another occasion, Hannay makes an analogy that plays on the stereotypes of Jews as being wealthy. Again, that is probably an accurate reflection of the times, but it is uncomfortable. To Buchan's credit, the conspiracy is more than simply an "evil Jewish plot" (it's telling that some of the rhetoric Buchan uses is still floating around today). Nonetheless, as with most older literature, you have to take the prejudices in context of when the book was written. "The Thirty-Nine Steps" is not an heir to the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". It is an exciting thriller, featuring a heavy does of suspense and intrigue. Simply put, it's a blast.

A Spymaster Who Writes Spy Novels

It was not until recently that actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and others learned and revealed the information that John Buchan, author of "The Thirty-nine Steps" as well as the highly successful Greenmantle series, had been the head of the secretive British domestic intelligence agency which parallels the FBI in the United States, MI-5. With that knowledge it is increasingly easier to see how the Scotland-born Buchan was able to write such penetrating spy stories, which contain such a strong tone of believability."The Thirty-nine Steps" traces the activities of Richard Hannay into the world of master spies. This gripping first person account details how an innocent was drawn into the grimy world of espionage after an American called Scudder who lived in his Portland Place apartment building contacted him one day, telling him he was about to be assassinated by a group of master spies. When the act is accomplished Hannay becomes a sought after potential victim as the spy group fears what he might know about their enterprise. He is also pursued by police as a murder suspect in Scudder's death.Hannay, a former international mining engineer, tells adventure stories about his foreign experiences and uses common sense resourcefulness to prevent the police from arresting him as the suspected killer of Scudder and the spy masters who want him dead for what he might have learned from his former neighbor Scudder.Buchan, a former mountain climber and a distinct man of action, presents Hannay as a man much like himself, using mental and physical resourcefulness to stay out of harm's path. Scotsman Buchan presents excellent descriptions of chase sequences in the Scottish moors as Hannay hides in and steps through heather and brush, eluding those who chase him.Eventually Hannay is able to solve the case by using logic in the way of Arthur Conan Doyle's presentation of Sherlock Holmes. Buchan was influenced by Doyle. This influence is particularly notable at the story's fascinating conclusion.