The Thirty-Nine Steps

Written by John Buchan

Narrated by Steven Crossley

John Buchan takes us back to Edwardian Britain on the eve of the First World War in the modern thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps. An inexplicable murder drives the innocent Richard Hannay, on the run from a manhunt that never seems to end, to hide in remote Scottish moorland. Disguise and deception are his only weapons, as he struggles to decode the clues left by the murdered man to prevent the theft of naval secrets by an unfriendly foreign power.

The best-known of Buchan's thrillers, The Thirty-Nine Steps has been continuously in print since its first publication and has been filmed three times, including the brilliant 1935 version directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The Thirty-Nine Steps was also a powerful influence on the development of the detective novel, the action romance, and the spy story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jul 26, 2010
• ISBN: 9781400189007

John Buchan

John Buchan was a Scottish diplomat, barrister, journalist, historian, poet and novelist. He published nearly 30 novels and seven collections of short stories. He was born in Perth, an eldest son, and studied at Glasgow and Oxford. In 1901 he became a barrister of the Middle Temple and a private secretary to the High Commissioner for South Africa. In 1907 he married Susan Charlotte Grosvenor and they subsequently had four children. After spells as a war correspondent, Lloyd George's Director of Information and Conservative MP, Buchan moved to Canada in 1935. He served as Governor General there until his death in 1940. Hew Strachan is Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford; his research interests include military history from the 18th century to date, including contemporary strategic studies, but with particular interest in the First World War and in the history of the British Army.

Reviews for The Thirty-Nine Steps

[eadieb-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book very much. It was a very good, fast read with classic, historical importance. It held my interest from start to finish. If you like spy mysteries, then I would highly recommend this book.

[pussreboots · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The 39 Steps is actually a quick read and a rather dry thriller. I think part of that apparent dryness is a result of it being the inspiration for so many spy thrillers. It is impressive to see a book published in 1915 still in print -- so many books don't have this long of a life in print. All the comedic bits that make it a memorable Hitchcock film aren't there. Even as a young filmmaker he was already exercising his authority as an up and coming auteur.

[edgeworth_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Thirty-Nine Steps is a WWI-era thriller by John Buchan; in the introduction, he mentions in a letter to a friend that he wrote it because he was bedridden with illness and had exhausted his own supply of easy, amusing thriller novels, so he decided to write his own. The novel follows protagonist Richard Hannay, a Scottish-born Rhodesian miner who has recently returned to the mother country and finds himself embroiled in a plot to throw Europe into war. With the man who warned Hannay of the plot soon murdered in his own flat, Hannay finds himself on the run in Scotland, pursued by both the conspirators and the British police.I think I picked up The Thirty-Nine Steps because it was on the BBC’s Big Read, and because I recently got an ereader and was looking for public domain novels to download to test it out. It’s a relatively entertaining lark which reminded me quite a bit of Geoffrey Hosuehold’s Rogue Male (though I liked it better, since it has more variety in it) and no doubt enthralled many a soldier in the trenches of France. It moves along at a decent pace and clocks in nice and short at just over 100 pages. I’m just not sure why it’s so famous or why it made the Big Read list – there are probably hundreds of thrillers from the era that are of about the same quality. The Thirty-Nine Steps is entertaining enough, but if you die without reading it your life wasn’t necessarily a waste.

[dbsovereign · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The classic later filmed by Alfred Hitchcock, this book is an adventure/romance whose hero/narrator exposes a spy ring and saves Britain from an invasion.

[carltonc_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Two short novels in this Folio edition.The Thirty-Nine Steps was as exciting as when read last time, although as I have seen the 1978 Robert Powell film version many times in between with my family, coming back to the original story was somewhat different, especially the character of Scudder at the start. An enjoyable old-fashioned adventure yarn that might have far too many coincidences, but still rattles along at a lovely pace.The second novel, The Power-House, was first published in 1913 and has Edward Leithen as the main character, a barrister early on in his career in this first book. Although this novel is a thriller, the next in the Edward Leithen series, the excellent John MacNab, is much more a hunting, shooting, fishing book.Both novels are understandably dated, but they give an interesting view into upper class (or upper-middle class) English society at the beginning of the twentieth century, as well as being rattling good reads.

[booksfordinner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyed this a lot. The old style adventure/chase/thriller kind of book where the protagonist is helped by an endless parade of lucky breaks is always fun; reading one written by A writer like John Buchan makes it much more so.

[davethewebb_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An excellent book. Doesn't seem unrealistic, although the hero is on the verge of failure most of the time. Keeps up the suspense admirably.

[musicmom41 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A good yarn—the basic plot was similar to the Hitchcock movie but the particulars were quite different. The title makes sense in the novel—it refers to a place that has exactly 39 steps. In the movie the clumsy attempt at explaining the title never did make sense. In the book—no girl (the original murder was of a man staying with Hannay and no girl handcuffed to him on his flight) and no Music Hall Show. The art of disguise plays a big role in this novel—for both sides. I wonder if I can still enjoy the movie? Maybe I should just consider them 2 different stories and enjoy them both.

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I thought this would be fun, having seen the Hitchcock film numerous times but it was an utter disappointment. I had to really force myself to finish the book. It followed a chapter by chapter formula of Hannay on the run, meets with character, gets fed, gets new disguise, talks about case, gets sent off to next person who will help him on the way. Next chapter, repeat. Each chapter title even tells you who he is going to meet: The Adventure of the Literary Innkeeper, Radical Candidate, Spectacled Roadman, and so on. It was very tedious reading and I honestly kept forgetting what the plot was each time I picked up the book. Even though it's such a short book I had to take it in small bites. I'm the last person to judge older books by modern sensibilities, but even I found its flippant empirical racial quips hard to swallow including coming from the time it was written. "'I haven't the privilege of your name, Sir, but let me tell you that you're a white man." Anyway, it was boring and I can't see myself ever picking up a book by Buchan again.

[defrog_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Well, it’s supposed to be a classic of dime-novel thriller fiction, and I’d never seen any of the movie versions, so I gave it a shot. The melodrama is pretty hard to take seriously, though, as is the idea that the main character is doing everything just because he’s a bored adventurer who fancies a little action. But it is short and snappy.

[ursula_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

After a brief introduction to our main character, Richard Hannay, who is living in London but considering returning to South Africa due to boredom, we are thrust immediately into the plot by the arrival of a strange man with an even stranger tale. The man, Scudder, tells Hannay about a political plot that is underway and which he is trying to thwart. Scudder has faked his own death to escape his pursuers, who are going to commit a political assassination. Hannay is fascinated with the story, which he believes in spite of its outlandishness because he assesses the man as an honest one. Shortly, Scudder is killed, and Hannay takes up his mission. He is pursued across the UK by the police as well as by the bad guys as he tries to prevent the war from coming to pass.I was unsurprised that Hitchcock was drawn to make a movie out of this one (although I hear that the movie bears little resemblance to the book - I haven't seen it yet). It reminds me a lot of North by Northwest, with the story being based on relentless pursuit of someone who is innocent. The book definitely succeeds at creating an atmosphere of complete paranoia. I usually just read along at face value, but I was seeing spies and counterspies, plots and potential double-crosses everywhere. It's a short book, full of narrow escapes and cunning disguises, and it moves quickly. If you're looking for complete plausibility, it probably won't appeal to you, but one can see all the earmarks of future spy novels touched on here.Recommended for: Bond aficionados, people who enjoy Germans as villains, Tarantino fans, people who have always wanted to read detailed descriptions of the Scottish countryside.Quote: "'By God!' he whispered, drawing his breath in sharply, 'it is all pure Rider Haggard and Conan Doyle.'"

[ricday_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Classic. One of the first crime novels I can recall reading and one I thoroughly enjoyed.

[bzedan_2 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is a classic, I think? I can see why. Average dude, who's luckily good at rolling with the death-punches, caught up in mystery! OMiG, state of England at stake!

[cwflatt · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

fun clean tale of adventure.

[revslick_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the classic that started the 'man-on-the-run' action thrillers. It's also the one everybody has tried to live up to since. Classic, espionage, thriller - don't put it down otherwise you might have to backtrack. You don't follow this one - you just hang on for the ride.

[lisamorr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Bored Richard Hannay has already had enough of London, after returning from a life abroad. But then a neighbor drops by and Richard's life becomes very exciting, very fast. The coincidences are unbelievable at times in this espionage thriller as Richard becomes embroiled in trying to stop a secret plot to undermine the British war effort as Europe marches towards WW1. Still it was a fun ride as Richard races across Scotland by train, car and on foot as he tries to shake his pursuers and expose the plot.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's May 1914 in London, England. Scottish expatriate Richard Hannay has a troublesome visitor. That's the first thing I would say about The Thirty Nine Steps. An American stranger has come to him with a wild tale of espionage and knowledge of a planned assassination. Because he was in the know, according to this stranger, Mr. Scudder, he had to fake his own death. He has come to Hannay to hide himself and his little coded book of secrets. However, imagine Hannay's surprise when that same man is found with a knife so thoroughly through the heart it skewered him to the floor! Needless to say, Hannay is now on the run...with the cipher of secrets. With Mr. Scudder dead on his floor, surely he will be the number one suspect. The rest of the short book is Hannay's attempts to hide out in Scotland, a place he hasn't seen since he was six years old, thirty one years ago. The key to the whole mystery is a reference to "39 steps" in Scudder's little book.

[carl_alves_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Thirty-Nine Steps was written and is set in World War 1 era Europe, where conspiracies of worldwide war are at work. The story’s main character, Richard Hannay is leading a typical middle class life when he gets thrust in the middle of it all as a stranger shows up telling him of this conspiracy. When the stranger winds up dead, Richard takes it upon himself to bring the killers to justice and prevent the war from happening.This novel is part thriller, part spy novel. In comparison to other novels from that era, this is written at a fairly fast pace. Although conspiratorial in nature, it was interesting how many of the things written in the book came to pass and how true to life the novel was. Buchan shows a high skill-level in his writing. Richard Hanney is a bit of an everyman—someone who gets thrust into a crazy situation and rises to the occasion. My only real complaint is that the villains in the story weren’t terribly well-developed and their motives seemed a bit shaky. The final confrontation made me feel a bit ambivalent. This was a good read. I’m generally not into fiction written over a century ago, but I think this novel works.Carl Alves – author of Two For Eternity

[anniemod · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am not sure why it took me so long to get around to reading Buchan - I had always known about his novels and they had always been somewhere on my TBR list but somehow I never got to them. I guess it was time to rectify that. Meet Richard Hannay - 37 years old, just back from Rhodesia (and now technically retired) and really bored. After all the excitement in South Africa, London and Britain are boring in the spring of 1914 (working out the year is not hard once you read the novel because the reference to the impeding and starting war is there but it is also as easy to figure it out in the first chapter when Hannay mentions the Balkan Wars and we know it is May - it cannot be 1913 because they are still raging and it cannot be 1915 because WWI had not started yet).Hannay is ready to catch a train to somewhere, anywhere if nothing happens... and then something does happen - a guy he had never met before confides in him about a huge conspiracy involving the powerful men of the day and within days, the guy is dead in Hannay's flat. The story is so outlandish that our hero is not sure how much to believe of it... but after the murder, he decides that the story must have merit and goes on a run in Scotland. Of course he manages to do it in a way that makes sure that he is blamed for the murder and our bored man is not on the run from both the police and the murderers. And somewhere along the way, it turns out that the conspiracy is not just real but that it is a lot more complicated than he thought. During his run Hannay meets all kind of different people - from a road worker to a politician wannabe to an old acquaintance; he manages to stumble right into the spies house (because the conspiracy involves foreign spies)- of course he does, there is no reason not to. Add to this a plane, a big explosion and Scotland Yard not just believing him but helping him at the end and the story is complete. It is a spy story from the times before every spy had to have a beautiful woman on his arm; before the time when a woman was mandatory for a novel and especially a spy novel. It is called one of the first novels with a man on a run and it is - the description of the run and the places where he goes through are done very well and make you want to read more. Buchan himself compares the novel to the dime novels so popular in the States at the time. And it really is very similar in tone to those pulp novels. But it is also very British in the way that only authors from the empire can make it. And despite its brevity, it makes you want to read about Hannay more - at least to see what else happens to him when he is bored... and what happens when he is not.

[santhony_35 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

For Christmas, I ordered an mp3 player (Library of Classics) that was pre-loaded with 100 works of classic literature in an audio format. Each work is in the public domain and is read by amateurs, so the quality of the presentation is hit or miss. The Thirty Nine Steps is a suspense/mystery novel dealing with intrigue leading up to World War I. The British narrator receives a strange visitor who gives him sensitive information involving a possible assassination attempt on a Balkan dignitary. When the visitor is soon killed, the narrator realizes he is not only in trouble with the authorities (suspected of having murdered the victim), but even more so from the shadowy German organization who must silence him in order to proceed with their plans. The narrator leads the Germans on a merry chase, all the while trying to piece together their ultimate plan.This is not a bad piece of work, though it is relatively unremarkable. Very average in all respects.

[aront-2 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I heard this book read as an audio book on the best audio books' classic tales podcast. That's the only thing that made it bearable (check out the podcast it's excellent). Well the mercifully short ending helped. The fact that Hitchcock managed to make this into a fantastic film proves once again that books and their films are as closely related as a man and his fifth cousin twice removed.

[troyka-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

very hard going when trying to understand dialect. it made it a chore for me, but its still a good book, just not dyslexia friendly.

[shrubbery_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Incredibly dated and laughably bad.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A classic, published in 1915, It is 100 years old this year. I've always wanted to read it and it is very quick, an easy one to get off the list of 1001 Books. It is an espionage novel, written by John Buchan during a time when he was sick in bed and had read everything he could get his hands on. It's fast paced, you really never know why or what is really going on but the main character is running from the police and trying to avoid capture by the spies that killed a man in his apartment. He had been bored until this adventure overtook him.

[amerynth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I thought John Buchan's "The Thirty-Nine Steps" was just okay. Written as an early thriller, it features adventurer Richard Hannay, who gets embroiled in espionage and must escape the clutches of both the local police and some more sinister characters who are following him about.The book was pretty fun initially, and I thought the framing of the story was really interesting. After Hannay's gazillionth escape from the people chasing him, it got a bit tired. It's odd to say that a 115-page book felt too long, but it did. This might have worked better as a short story. The story ties up neatly in the end and made for a decent and fast read. It didn't, however, inspire me to read the remaining four books featuring Hannay.

[bookworm12_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Richard Hannay is a young, single man who has grown bored with life in London in 1914. But just when things seem slow, a man is murdered in Hannay’s flat and he finds himself in the midst of a conspiracy. He realizes he has some top secret information and his life is at risk, so he goes on the run.I love the bits about Hannay escaping on trains, you just can't do that in the states because we have so few passenger trains. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see a train about to leave the station, run for it and at the last second leap aboard, loosing your pursuers in the process. That wouldn’t exactly work at an airport.Hannay meets some great characters while evading both the bad guys and the police, who want to question him about the murder that happened in his flat. It’s a fun adventure story, though I don’t think the details with stick with me. I would like to check out Hitchcock’s movie version.

[jdholiday_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Love this book! I grew up watching the Million Dollars Movies on TV with my mother and one of the greatest movies to this day, I think, is The Thirty-nine Steps, Produced by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Robert Donat (1905 to 1958) and Madeline Carroll (1906 to 1987.) So I was in for an awakening when I read the original book by John Buchan (1875 to 1940.) In The Thirty-nine Steps written is 1915 you follow Richard Hannay, who must decipher a murdered man's code book while threading through a maze of murder and mystery from England to Scotland and back again. You fall in love with the Scottish countryside as Hannay evades the German spies leading to the first World War and British police who think he has murdered the one man who knows how Germany will destroy the Britsh navy. With its 113 pages, The Thirty-nine Steps is a quick and wonderful read!

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The accent - it's a problem. I've never gotten used to think accents, regardless of their origin - be they Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Brum, anywhere - and here Buchan decides, when he sends his hero scurrying up north to escape the police, to present all of the dialogue as close to the dialect as possible. It's hard work, as a result.

[mrsrk-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent book, and I enjoyed it from beginning to end. This is actually a series of five books. Following this one are: Greenmantle (1916), Mr. Standfast (1919), The Three Hostages (1924) and The Island of Sheep (1936). What led me to read “The 39 Steps” was James Hawes’ 2008 movie version starring Rupert Penry-Jones. I tried to watch Hitchcock’s version but couldn’t finish it, it was THAT bad. Although I enjoyed the modern movie, both fell very far from Buchan’s plot; there are so many changes the original story is barely recognizable. I can’t find a reasonable explanation for both directors adding female characters to the story; there were none in the book and no need for their addition. In fact, the Victoria Sinclair character of Hawes actually pushed Richard Hannay’s almost to second fiddle, when in the original story he was always the main character—and a very good one. Oddly, in the 2008 movie, all the glory goes to her—who did not even grace the original story. (Makes me wonder why the new 007 movies have a woman embodying “M,” when he was clearly a male in the original books…)

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Before I write my review, I like to poke around and read other reviews, on amazon and goodreads and by searching google. I like to see if anyone's picked up something I missed that's worth thinking about, or if people are being perfect idiots about it. I've read that this book is terribly boring and you'd be better off reading a cereal box, I've read that this book is not suitable for girls, and I've read that it isn't suitable for Americans because the spelling is "weird".

Note my gender.

And the interesting fact that I'm supposed to deal with American spelling, but the Americans can't deal with ours... Ah, hypocrisy.

Anyway! The Thirty-Nine Steps is, apparently, one of the first spy novels. It's not a genre I'm incredibly interested in, but usually when I come across a mystery novel or whatever, I can get engrossed in it. This one's a very quick read, my copy is only a little over a hundred pages long, though the writing is quite small and close, which was a liiiittle irritating. Couldn't actually read it in bed without my glasses on!

That aside. It's quite a fun little story: tightly plotted, with several daring escapes and breathless moments. Suspension of disbelief is necessary, but not too necessary. The main character isn't the most likeable man in the world -- rich, bored, quite skilled at deceit, quick-tempered, a little whiny... But he isn't that bad, either. At least, I didn't particularly want him to get caught and killed. The writing was readable, too, quite immediate despite the past tense, and I didn't notice any particularly clunky parts.

It didn't bowl me over, not to the extent that I'd say "it was amazing" (five stars), but yeah, I "really liked it" (four stars).