Une course poursuite haletante entre l'Écosse et Londres où le héros trouve un cadavre dans son salon. Une organisation secrète cherche par tous les moyens à déclencher la guerre entre l'Allemagne et l'Angleterre en ce début de XXème siècle. Y parviendront-ils ?

Les 39 marches

The Thirty-Nine Steps Level 3

Set just before the onset of the First World War, The Thirty-Nine Steps introduces one of literature's most memorable detectives, Richard Hannay, an expatriate Scot who has just returned to London from South Africa. Four days after hearing of an assassination plot and plans to steal Britain's military strategies, Hannay's informant is found dead in his apartment. Forced to flee from both the murderers and the police, Hannay must use his wits to stay ahead of his pursuers and warn the government before it is too late. One of the most popular adventure stories ever written, The Thirty-Nine Steps is regarded as the starting point for espionage fiction and established John Buchan as the original thriller writer. The Thirty-Nine Steps, the first book in the Richard Hannay series, inspired many others novelists and filmmakers including Alfred Hitchcock who directed the first of four film adaptations of the novel. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

The Thirty-Nine Steps

Richard Hannay, ancien ingénieur des mines, vient de rentrer à Londres après plusieurs années passées en Afrique du Sud. Très vite, la capitale britannique l'ennuie au plus haut point. Il rencontre alors un Américain qui lui parle d'un complot qui pourrait avoir de terribles répercussions sur l'Europe entière. Hannay accepte de le cacher dans son appartement. Mais, en rentrant chez lui, un soir, il découvre son cadavre. Suspect pour la police, proie pour les assassins, Hannay prend la fuite. Il lui faut dès lors éclaircir cette ténébreuse affaire, et comprendre où mènent les 39 marches...

John Buchan's "The Thirty-Nine steps" is a 1915 spy novel set in London and  Scotland, during the few weeks preceding the outbreak of World War One. Made  famous by Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 cinematographic adaptation, "The Thirty-Nine  steps" is Buchan's most famous work. Originally an attempt at creating a  "dime-novel" or a "shocker", the novel is often considered as one of the  greatest adventure or spy novels of all times, and it probably invents the  genre. Rediscover "The Thirty-Nine steps" with its original preface and biography  in this new edition by Les Éditions de Londres.

The Thirty-nine steps

Frère d'armes de Richard Hannay - le héros des "Trente-neuf marches" - le jeune avocat anglais Edward Leithen se trouve confronté ici à une puissante et mystérieuse confrérie criminelle nommée "la Centrale d'énergie". Au fil de rebondissements dignes d'un film d'Alfred Hitchcock, Leithen parviendra à confondre le cerveau de l'organisation et à déjouer le complot qui menace le monde civilisé. Comme "Les Trente-neuf marches", "La Centrale d'énergie" est un roman noir captivant, prophétique et profondément original. L'auteur, John Buchan, précurseur du roman d'espionnage contemporain, a suivi parallèlement deux carrières, l'une de politicien influent (Baron Tweedsmuir d'Elsfield, membre de l'organisation semi-secrète de La Table Ronde, il fut l'éminence grise de plusieurs Premiers ministres anglais, principal artisan de la construction du Commonwealth et gouverneur général du Canada), l'autre d'écrivain, auteur d'une bonne trentaine d'oeuvres dans différents genres (biographies historiques, essais politiques, romans d'aventures et d'espionnage).

La Centrale d'énergie

Voici le livre dont a été tiré le célèbre film d'Alfred Hitchcock : Richard Hannay, de retour d'Afrique du sud, s'ennuie dans son pays, l'Angleterre, et pense à repartir lorsqu'un locataire de son immeuble, Franklin P. Scudder, l'en dissuade en lui offrant un travail digne de Sherlock Holmes, qui lui fera vite oublier son désir de réembarquer pour l'Afrique. Notre apprenti détective se retrouve en possession d'un carnet contenant une énigme que lui a laissé Scudder, qui a été assassiné entre temps. Que sont donc ces 39 marches?... 

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The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure novel by the Scottish author John Buchan. It first appeared as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine in August and September 1915 before being published in book form in October that year by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh. It is the first of five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a miraculous knack for getting himself out of sticky situations. The novel formed the basis for a number of film adaptations, notably: Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 version; a 1959 colour remake; a 1978 version which is perhaps most faithful to the novel; and a 2008 version for British television.

I returned from the City about three o'clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick, I couldn't get enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun. 'Richard Hannay, ' I kept telling myself, 'you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and you had better climb out.' It made me bite my lips to think of the plans I had been building up those last years in Bulawayo. I had got my pile-not one of the big ones, but good enough for me; and I had figured out all kinds of ways of enjoying myself. My father had brought me out from Scotland at the age of six, and I had never been home since; so England was a sort of Arabian Nights to me, and I counted on stopping there for the rest of my days.

Les 39 marches

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