Full catalogue / The Thirty-Nine Steps / Czech – English

John Buchan

The Thirty-Nine Steps

Name: The Thirty-Nine Steps
Brand: Polyglot Publishing
SKU: 31b0354d-045a-73ef-e501-ca757e9a3d2c-cs-en
Price: 20.99 EUR
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)
Author: John Buchan

1 review

Original publication: 1915
Bilingual edition: June 12, 2026
Pages: 231
Difficulty: ★☆☆
Genres: Crime and Thriller, Adventure
Translated from: English

Book summary

Richard Hannay, an ordinary man, becomes unwittingly involved in an international espionage case after a dangerous revelation. Forced to flee, he crosses England while escaping his pursuers. Alone against all, he must thwart a plot that threatens the country’s security. The pace is fast and the tension constant. This thriller blends suspense, pursuit, and strategic intelligence. The author constructs an efficient plot where every decision can be fatal.

The plot

On the run to Scotland. Richard Hannay is bored in London. One evening, his neighbour asks Hannay to hide him: he has uncovered a spy plot.

The world of the book

1914: a war is coming to Europe. In the spring of 1914, the great powers of Europe distrust one another. In Britain, many people fear German spies. The hero of the book flees to Galloway, a region of empty hills in…

The author

John Buchan 1875 – 1940. The son of a Scottish minister, John Buchan spent his childhood summers walking in the hills. At 26, he went to work in southern Africa, where the book’s hero also lived. One day he ran out of…

The benefits of the bilingual method with Line-by-line synced layout

Every line of the original has its translation directly beneath it, at the same height. You never lose your place: your eye drops one line and lands on exactly the sentence it just read. This is the layout that lets you open a book in a language you barely know without ever giving up, and compare the two texts almost word for word.