As war looms in Europe, Richard Hannay returns from Rhodesia to his home in London. His neighbor, an American freelance spy named Franklin Scudder, claims to know of an assassination plot to destabilize Europe. When Hannay finds Scudder dead in his flat he is drawn into a fast-paced labyrinthine adventure that takes him from the hills of Scotland to an unassuming location by the sea. The progenitor of the classic man-on-the-run thriller, The Thirty-Nine Steps first appeared as a serial adventure story in Blackwood’s Magazine from August to September 1915 and in book form in October of that year. Since its publication it has never been out of print and has been frequently adapted for television, radio, theater, and film, including, quite famously, a 1935 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Table des matières
Contents
Chapter I. The Man Who Died1
Chapter II. The Milkman Sets Out on his Travels13
Chapter III. The Adventure of the Literary Innkeeper20
Chapter IV. The Adventure of the Radical Candidate32
Chapter V. The Adventure of the Spectacled Roadman43
Chapter VI. The Adventure of the Bald Archaeologist52
Chapter VII. The Dry-Fly Fisherman67
Chapter VIII. The Coming of the Black Stone77
Chapter IX. The Thirty-Nine Steps85
Chapter X. Various Parties Converging on the Sea93
Biographical Timeline107
A propos de l’auteur
John Buchan (1875-1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, barrister, and politician. After studying at Glasgow and Oxford, he served as private secretary to the High Commissioner for South Africa from 1901 to 1903. On his return to the UK he pursued politics and a literary career. During the First World War he was a war correspondent before being appointed Director of Information for the British Army Intelligence Corps. From 1935 to his death in 1940 he was the Governor General of Canada. He is best known as the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps and other adventure fiction.