Adventure · Thriller
Michael Strogoff
The Tsar's courier must carry a secret message across Siberia, through an invading army, without revealing who he is.
Five levels, about 80 languages
- A2ElementaryShort sentences and everyday words.
- B1IntermediateYou follow clear stories about familiar things.
- B2Upper intermediateLonger sentences, richer vocabulary.
- C1AdvancedClose to the original, lightly condensed.
- C2ProficientThe complete novel.
One purchase is one book, in one language, at one level: $4.99. Another level of a book you own is $1.99. Editions nobody has asked for yet are written on request: chapter 1 in a few minutes, the rest while you read. How the levels work.
About the book
Moscow to Irkutsk, in disguise
A Tartar army has invaded Siberia and cut the telegraph line. In Moscow, the Tsar must warn his brother, the Grand Duke, in faraway Irkutsk that a traitor, Ivan Ogareff, is on his way to betray the city. He chooses Michael Strogoff, a courier from Omsk: strong, patient and loyal. Strogoff must cross thousands of kilometers by train, river steamer, carriage and horse, through an invasion, without telling anyone who he is, even when silence costs him dearly. Jules Verne’s novel appeared in 1876.
Why it works for learners
This is a road story, and road stories are friendly to learners: each chapter is a new stage, a new town, a new obstacle, and the goal never changes. Strogoff travels with Nadia, a young woman heading east to join her exiled father, and their partnership gives the book its warmth. Two rival war correspondents, one English and one French, keep turning up for comic relief; their sparring shows how the same news can be told two ways. The vocabulary covers travel, weather, rivers, horses, war and the telegraph.
Which level to start at
B1 is a good start; the story is clear and the pace is quick. At B2 you’ll enjoy the reporters’ banter and Verne’s set-piece descriptions of the steppe and the Siberian rivers. For learners of Russian, here is a Russian adventure to read in Russian, even if a Frenchman wrote it. If no one has read it yet in your language at your level, Lexo writes that edition for you, starting with chapter 1, and you keep a dated First edition mark.
Read next
- Around the World in Eighty Days, Verne’s other race against time
- The Three Musketeers, another dangerous errand on horseback
- The Thirty-Nine Steps, a man on the run with a secret
