Thriller · Spy
The Thirty-Nine Steps
A man finds a murdered spy in his flat and goes on the run across Scotland, hunted by police and enemy agents.
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
A body in the flat
Richard Hannay has come back to London from southern Africa, and after three months he is bored stiff. Then a neighbor from the top floor of his building, an American called Scudder, turns up at his door with a story about an assassination plot and a ring of spies. A few days later Hannay comes home to find him dead on the floor, with a knife through his heart. With the police likely to suspect him and the killers looking for Scudder’s notebook, Hannay takes a train north to Scotland and runs. John Buchan published the novel in 1915, and it set a pattern that thrillers still follow: the innocent man on the run.
Why it works for learners
The book is short, and nearly every chapter is a self-contained escape: a train, a country inn, a political meeting, a roadmender’s disguise, a lonely house on the moor. That makes it easy to read in short sessions. Hannay narrates in a brisk, practical voice, explaining what he thinks and why, so you’re never lost. The vocabulary is travel and pursuit: train, station, road, map, car, hide, follow, escape, code. There’s very little description for its own sake. It’s action from start to finish.
Which level to start at
B1 is ideal, and A2 is realistic for a confident learner; the plot does the work. At B2 and above you’ll enjoy Buchan’s crisp style and his landscapes of Galloway, which are some of the best things in the book. Buchan called it a “shocker”, a romance “where the incidents defy the probabilities”, and wrote it to cheer himself up during an illness.
Read next
- The Riddle of the Sands, the slower, foggier spy novel that came a decade before
- Kidnapped, another flight across Scotland
- The Man Who Was Thursday, Chesterton’s comic chase among anarchists and detectives