The Thirty-Nine Steps is a 1915 adventure novel by John Buchan. It follows Richard Hannay, who is drawn into a spy conspiracy after a stranger is murdered in his flat, and his flight across Scotland to clear his name and stop a plot. Its brisk chase, ciphers and memorable set pieces make it a notable early thriller.
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Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan Contents Chapter I The Man Who Died Chapter II The Milkman Sets Out on his Travels Chapter III The Adventure of the Literary Innkeeper Chapter IV The Adventure of the Radical Candidate Chapter V The Adventure of the Spectacled Roadman Chapter VI The Adventure of the Bald Archaeologist Chapter VII The Dry-Fly Fisherman Chapter VIII The Coming of the Black Stone Chapter IX The Thirty-Nine Steps Chapter X Various Parties Converging on the Sea
TO THOMAS ARTHUR NELSON (LOTHIAN AND BORDER HORSE) My Dear Tommy, You and I have long cherished an affection for that elemental type of tale which Americans call the “dime novel” and which we know as the “shocker”—the romance where the incidents defy the probabilities, and march just inside the borders of the possible. During an illness last winter I exhausted my store of those aids to cheerfulness, and was driven to write one for myself. This little volume is the result, and I should like to put your name on it in memory of our long friendship, in the days when the wildest fictions are so much less improbable than the facts. J.B. Sept. 1915
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