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The 39 Steps Paperback – August 21, 2014

by John Buchan (Author)

3.9 11,809 ratings

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An effortless adventure classic spanning the void between dime shocker and quality literature, John Buchan’s “The 39 Steps” still satisfies after many reads. Richard Hannay returned to England, after making his fortune in South Africa, is unwillingly ensnared in a tortured plot to assassinate Karolides the Greek premier and so plunge Europe into war. Scudder, an American journalist turned spy has coded information relating to the plot but is murdered in Hannay's luxurious flat before he can pass on the code. Hannay, with all fingers pointing to him as the murderer escapes by Scottish express and with Scudder's coded notebook .Decamping from the train in the Sottish lowlands ( the Forth Bridge escape from the train was created with the 1935 Hitchcock film adaptation ) he is pursued across hill and dale by the police and the enemy agents intent on seizeing the notebook. In his flight he holes up in a remote wayside inn with a literary inn keeper, who can quote Kipling. It is here that he masters the code and learns Scudder's secrets. From then on it's a race to get to London and notify the authorities. One of the brilliant scenes on the way, concerns Hannay posing as road mender to evade his pursuers. To do this, Hannay explains how you must become one with the environment you're using as a cover; one of Buchans's favourite ploys and one employed in many of his novels. Hannay exchanges pursued for pursuer and tracks the agents to their escape channel and ultimately the title of the book is explained. Every reading of this splendid and timeless novel reveals further delights that may have been missed before and even well remembered scenes take on a fresh vividness and charm.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (August 21, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 90 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1500911135
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1500911133
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.21 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #251,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7,282 in Classic Literature & Fiction

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3.9 11,809 ratings

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11,809 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the story intriguing and enjoyable. They describe the book as a fun, easy read with descriptive language that's accessible for most reading levels. Many readers appreciate the fast-paced story and pacing that keeps them engaged until the end. However, some customers mention missing or mixed-up pages in the last chapter.

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Suspenseful Readability Writing style Fun read Pacing Comprehension Language Page content

116 customers mention "Suspenseful"98 positive18 negative

Customers enjoy the book's suspenseful story. They find it an engaging spy mystery that keeps them hooked until the end. The book is described as a classic spy novel with masterful suspense and adventure.

"This is a classic spy story and was a best seller in its time and may be said to have made John Buchan's fortune...." Read more

"...Buchan is also pretty good with the action sequences, always pretty rare in books and vanishingly rare for this time period...." Read more

"...Also "the 39 steps" is part of the code ... pretty good sleuthing in the end...." Read more

"...---an excellent cipher story, with one or two points of novelty, a murder, a big subterranean business, a flight in a stolen motor-car, a monoplane..." Read more

78 customers mention "Readability"67 positive11 negative

Customers enjoy the book's readability. They find it entertaining and a quick read with a simple plot. The movie based on the novel is also worth seeing.

"This is a classic spy story and was a best seller in its time and may be said to have made John Buchan's fortune...." Read more

"...In short, great writer, good book, generally recommendable all around and a must-read if you're a serious fan of the genre -- but he wrote better,..." Read more

"...with Robert Donat as Hannay and dialogue by Ian Hay... It is still very watchable; more than can be said of its successors...." Read more

"...The 39 Steps is quite an entertaining and lively yarn, filled to the brim with adventure and intrigue...." Read more

39 customers mention "Writing style"30 positive9 negative

Customers find the writing style engaging and easy to read. They appreciate the descriptive language and Scottish dialect. The book is described as charming and a fun read for most reading levels.

"...introduction and tutorial to the period, all in an amusing and easy to read slim book...." Read more

"...In short, great writer, good book, generally recommendable all around and a must-read if you're a serious fan of the genre -- but he wrote better,..." Read more

"...He was so clever, and most of the time he barely escaped. Fun read!" Read more

"...There is very little dialogue and most of the narrative is the main character, Richard Hannay, describing his adventure...." Read more

37 customers mention "Fun read"37 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book. They find it an enjoyable period piece, easy to read, and a good read-aloud for families of older children and adults.

"...is an excellent introduction and tutorial to the period, all in an amusing and easy to read slim book...." Read more

"...The best books by those guys are quite fun to read, but they're clearly coming from an earlier era of popular fiction -- one focused on a kind of..." Read more

"...The 39 Steps is quite an entertaining and lively yarn, filled to the brim with adventure and intrigue...." Read more

"...He was so clever, and most of the time he barely escaped. Fun read!" Read more

35 customers mention "Pacing"32 positive3 negative

Customers find the book's pacing good. They say it's an easy read with a good story and voice. The plot is fun, with the spy as a hero and the stratagem as a good thing. While it's complicated at first, it's interesting how the pieces come together.

"...The book follows his escape through the hills of Scotland and had me deciphering dialect while Richard worked on the puzzle of Scudder's code...." Read more

"I found this to be a very entertaining. It was a quick read, also...." Read more

"...Overall, it's good for a quick read, but don't expect too much from it." Read more

"...between description and dialogue is well thought, making is a well timed read." Read more

13 customers mention "Comprehension"4 positive9 negative

Customers have different views on the book's comprehension. Some find it an excellent introduction and tutorial to the period, with captivating psychological processes and logical reasoning. Others mention that the story is hard to follow, with confusing endings and boring parts.

"...It's fun but the logical gaps in it are frankly childish." Read more

"...That ends rather abruptly. Well written but lacking some rather needed further explanation about various events...." Read more

"...For the others, this is an excellent introduction and tutorial to the period, all in an amusing and easy to read slim book...." Read more

"...Since this is a suspense mystery story, it made following the conclusion difficult...." Read more

13 customers mention "Language"5 positive8 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the language. Some find it descriptive, entertaining, and fun with Scottish dialect. They appreciate the British expressions and subtle absurdity. However, others consider the story unbelievable and full of absurdities.

"...It's as thin as tissue, utterly unbelievable, and quite good fun...." Read more

"...They fall into a category of work in which language is important, the story develops at a slow pace, and the atmosphere of various locations is well..." Read more

"...The story is very dated...jingoistic, racist and absolutely unbelievable...." Read more

"...The book is not very good. It is full of absurdities. And it isn't very gripping. I have also seen movies, even the one directed by Alfred Hitchcock...." Read more

19 customers mention "Page content"0 positive19 negative

Customers find the book's last chapter incomplete and jumbled. They mention missing pages, lines, and incomplete sentences.

"...reviews complaining about the fact that the pages of the last chapter are all jumbled up, quite embarrassing to have given this as a gift and..." Read more

"...Great price, too! But when I got to Chapter 10, page 79, the pages were out of order to page 86, at which point they were correct to the end of..." Read more

"...The last dozen or so pages of the book had entire pages missing. One page would end with a complete sentence that was also the end of a paragraph...." Read more

"...But, the most annoying problem is at the end of the book where pages are either missing or in the wrong order...." Read more

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Charles Kovacs
This is a classic spy story and was a best seller in its time and may be said to ...
Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2015
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This is a classic spy story and was a best seller in its time and may be said to have made John Buchan's fortune. The story takes place in England and Scotland just before the start of World War I. Readers acquainted with the time and place will find the setting familiar, both geographically and socially. For the others, this is an excellent introduction and tutorial to the period, all in an amusing and easy to read slim book. The villains are of course the Germans, but even they are almost gentlemen and it's not their fault that they are not English.
The protagonist is a James Bond of his time, but without the gadgets and no sex; it's all just a matter of brain and some brawn. A "colonial," the protagonist has a fairly low opinion of his home country, and even a lower one of foreigners, except of course the rural Scots. The boo is definitely not pc, and for those not offended by this, this book is a must. It is surprisingly compelling and the price is certainly right.

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Douglas J. Bassett
Classic, historically important, but has it's weaknesses
Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2013
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This is one of the classics of the mystery/thriller genre, and it has a great deal of historical importance. That's easy to see when you place it up against other famous books of this era -- stuff by Le Queux or Oppenheim, for instance. The best books by those guys are quite fun to read, but they're clearly coming from an earlier era of popular fiction -- one focused on a kind of Victorian/Edwardian style of adventure fiction (an interest in the aristocracy, an interest in melodrama, a very restrained sense of "action", etc.). THIRTY NINE STEPS, though, seems proto-modern in contrast. The protagonist, Richard Hannay, is a middle class guy thrust out of his humdrum life by a chance encounter with adventure. How many modern thrillers start out with the same general premise?

Buchan also establishes many of the modern tropes of the thriller here -- while I don't think he wrote the first "man on the run" story, his version of it is probably what has influenced most modern thriller writers. Hannay goes to ground in Scotland and we see another thing that a lot of thriller writers adopted, the "window into other cultures" (thriller as picaresque novel). Buchan is also pretty good with the action sequences, always pretty rare in books and vanishingly rare for this time period. The highlight of the book, by far, is the escape from the cellar sequence, which still reads like the wind.

I could go on. (Buchan plays with the notion of "disguise" in an interesting way, for instance, and seems on some level to peg that to socioeconomic status -- Hannay confesses he's most uncomfortable with the emergent middle class, I suspect because he doesn't understand how they "fit" into his world.) The important thing is that if you're truly interested in mystery/suspense fiction, Buchan is a writer you sooner or later should read, and for it's influence and historical importance alone THIRTY NINE STEPS is a great book.

All that said, this is not my favorite Buchan. This is still early in his career and he's still working some things out -- some things are presented in almost rough draft form. The climax has it's moments and in some ways is quite clever (in brings to a conclusion his ideas about "disguise", as the villains end up doing the same thing Hannay has done through the rest of the book)but it's as contrived as hell how Hannay gets there, the seams are showing here. Also, I'm still not sure I understand the villains' plot. Yes, I know, they "want war". But why? What do they hope to gain from it? And how, again, does this particular plan ensure that happening?

In short, great writer, good book, generally recommendable all around and a must-read if you're a serious fan of the genre -- but he wrote better, believe me.

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17 people found this helpful

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Suzanne Moore
I liked the quote where in the end when he begins ...
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2015
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This spy novella, originally published in 1915, was chosen for our town's first centennial read. I presume the author was influenced by the impending WWI as he crafted this adventure story. Richard Hannay the main character has to take to the run when a stranger (Scudder) he offers shelter to ends up stabbed to death in his apartment. Before Scudder meets his demise, he shares a political secret ... planned assassination of a Greek ambassador ... that could trigger a world war. Richard realizes that he could be arrested for the murder of Scudder, but he also realizes that he is probably now going to be tracked by "bad guys" for the secrets he carries. Scudder left behind a code of some sort that Richard has to decipher in order to clear his name and stop the political assassination from taking place. The book follows his escape through the hills of Scotland and had me deciphering dialect while Richard worked on the puzzle of Scudder's code. While Richard is being pursued, he becomes a master of disguise beginning with his initial escape as a milkman. I liked the quote where in the end when he begins to uncover the mystery of Scudder's murder ... "A fool tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is different."
Also "the 39 steps" is part of the code ... pretty good sleuthing in the end. Although things wrapped up rather abruptly ... justice was served.

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Top reviews from other countries

Mr M R Bloomer
Horrendous copy
Reviewed in Mexico on May 13, 2021
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This just arrived and the copy is A4 size. I wanted a nice leafy paperback but I have something that looks like a TV script. I don't even want to read this copy. Do not buy the paperback version!

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Amazon Customer
A Picaresque mystery novel.
Reviewed in India on July 21, 2017
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The title Thirty Nine Steps is intriguing and inspired me to read the novel. The Kindle edition is easy to read and navigate through the pages. John Buchan has been successful in presenting the beauty of the Scottish country side as the narrator traverses the length and breadth of a part of Scotland. The suspense is maintained till the end and the mystery becomes clear as the novel progresses. A good and entertaining read. A classic mystery.

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Ms. L. Lynne Irwin - Vernon
Take The Thirty-Nine Steps to Intrigue and Mayhem.
Reviewed in Canada on October 1, 2015
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The Thirty-Nine Steps was written by John Buchan, the 15th Prime Minister of Canada.

Our hero is Richard Hannay who, in this reader's opinion is equal in stealth, knowledge and intrigue as Sherlock Holmes and a James Bond of 1914. .The Thirty-Nine Steps is filled with murder, mayhem, assassination plots, international spies , Every page offers more excitement than the page before.

The Thirty-Nine Steps has been made into a number of Radio Shows and Movies. The 1935, black and white Alfred Hitchcock movie of The Thirty-Nine Steps was an excellent adaptation. In recent years, it has even been made into a Video game.

The Thirty-Nine Steps was the first of five adventure novels with Richard Hannay as the hero.

I first read this book when I was 9 years old in Public School. I am now 61 years young and I still enjoy reading this gem.

I highly recommend The Thirty-Nine Steps

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A classic - revisited for the n-th time
Reviewed in Germany on October 22, 2015
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I don't think I need to say a lot: An adventure classic, that has aged a little in its content: some of the values stated are a little "Colonial"... but as a read, quick and punchy, it is worth it, and I have now read it several times.It possibly won't be on my list to read again for a while.

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James Brydon
A classic adventure story, still fresh and entertainign one hundred years on.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 21, 2015
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This is one of THE great adventure stories! I first read it about forty years ago and I have reread it numerous times since.

John Buchan seems to epitomise the great Victorian work ethic - now best known as a writer of cracking adventure stories featuring upright, "decent" heroes, he was a prolific worker. In addition to his thirty novels and various volumes of short stories, he also produced a multi-volume history of India and biographies of Sir Walter Scott and the Earl of Montrose. Writing was, however, really only his second career. His primary vocation was the law, and he built up an extensive practice as a tax barrister. From the Bar, like his fictional avatar Sir Edward Leithen, he progressed into politics (as a Unionist though one espousing both free trade and women's suffrage), eventually entering Parliament on the Unionist ticket in 1927. He was subsequently appointed Governor-General of Canada shortly after his elevation to the House of Lords as Baron Tweedsmuir. Where did he find the time?

While the plots and subject matter of his novels have recently fallen prey to satire for their idealised evocation of a Corinthian age that probably never really existed, his prose is always beautifully constructed and flows with inner cadences. This short novel introduces Richard Hannay, recently returned to Britain from Rhodesia where he has secured his fortune as a mining engineer. Bored out of his skull by the trivial interests of the other members of his social circle he is on the brink of returning to South Africa when he encounters Franklin Scudder, a frightened man with a scary secret.

Scudder starts to give Hannay all sorts of frightening insights to the prevailing European political situation and the inevitability of war against an over-powerful Germany, the catalyst for which will be the imminent assassination of Karolides, the last hope for sustained stability in the Balkans. However, Scudder himself is murdered and Hannay is put in the frame as his killer. He decides to flee to South West Scotland where he hopes to be able to lie low until he can muster sufficient evidence of the plot against Karolides.

Buchan is always at his finest when describing Scottish landscapes, and the Galloway wilderness almost becomes a character in its own right. Hannay is hunted relentlessly through the varied Galloway terrain, both by the police and by pursuers of an altogether more deadly provenance.

What has always amazed me most about "the Thirty Nine Steps" is the recurrent failure of film makers to bring it to the screen with any success, given that its plot-driven nature would seem to lend itself so readily to cinematic treatment. Hitchcock completely eviscerated the plot in his 1935 film, introducing a bizarre music-hall scene which was retained in the 1959 version directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Kenneth More. Meanwhile the 1970s version had Robert Powell hanging off the hands of Big Ben. Even the recent BBC version, though truer to the book than all of the others, felt the need to introduce a spurious romance element. Certainly Buchan did not do female characters well, a failing that he acknowledged - I don't think there is a single line of dialogue delivered by a woman in the whole novel.

It would also be easy to pick holes in the plot. [CAUTION - possible spoilers] There is, for example, an overwhelming dependence upon bizarre coincidence; while fleeing in a stolen car Hannay has a crash with someone whose godfather happens to be Permanent Secretary at the Home Office; fleeing from his pursuers he takes refuge in a private house only to find that it is owned by the leader of the pack from whom he is trying to escape; at one point he is locked in a storeroom only to find that it is full of explosives and fuses; and coming upon a solitary driver in the wilds of Galloway it turns out to be someone whom he knew from London, even though we have previously been told of the paucity of his social life during his brief stint in the capital.

Does any of this matter? Absolutely not! The story was written as a gripping adventure story, and it still succeeds in holding the reader's (and re-reader's) attention. One hundred years since its first publication it still works perfectly well.

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Pages out of order. Good read.

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a classic spy story and was a best seller in its time and may be said to ...

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic, historically important, but has it's weaknesses

3.0 out of 5 stars I liked the quote where in the end when he begins ...

Top reviews from other countries

1.0 out of 5 stars Horrendous copy

5.0 out of 5 stars A Picaresque mystery novel.

5.0 out of 5 stars Take The Thirty-Nine Steps to Intrigue and Mayhem.

4.0 out of 5 stars A classic - revisited for the n-th time

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic adventure story, still fresh and entertainign one hundred years on.

This is a classic spy story and was a best seller in its time and may be said to ...

Classic, historically important, but has it's weaknesses

I liked the quote where in the end when he begins ...

Horrendous copy

A Picaresque mystery novel.

Take The Thirty-Nine Steps to Intrigue and Mayhem.

A classic - revisited for the n-th time

A classic adventure story, still fresh and entertainign one hundred years on.