John Buchan has 27 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 28 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.3★ across 10 ratings. The most-rated is The Thirty-Nine Steps.
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Summary
Exclusively from Audible An espionage thriller that has been called the first great spy novel, it has sustained its popularity, being embraced by each new generation. The first in a series of five audiobooks it features the spy Richard Hannay, an action hero with a stiff upper lip who gets caught up in a dangerous race against a plot by German spies to destroy the British war effort. When Richard Hannay offers sanctuary to an American agent seeking his help in stopping a political assassination, he takes the first step on a trail of peril, murder, and espionage. Days later the agent's murdered body turns up in Hannay's flat, making him the prime suspect. Knowing he's next he goes into hiding in Scotland, but in his possession is the American agent's little black book that holds the key to the conspiracy. On the run from both the police and members of a mysterious organisation that will stop at nothing to keep their secrets hidden, the book has become one of the most influential chase books, adopted by many, including Hollywood, but with an unrivalled tension. The novel has been the basis for many adaptations although most have departed from the text. Most famous is Alfred Hitchcock's classic film The 39 Steps released in 1935. Narrator Biography Robert Powell received his first starring role in The Italian Job (1969) and is best known for the title role in the television series Jesus of Nazareth (1977). He received Best Actor awards for his performances in Imperativ (1982) and Harlequin (1980). His television career has included appearing in BBC One's Holby City (2005-2011) and the "science-fact" drama Doomwatch (1970) as well as starring alongside Jasper Carrott in the sitcom The Detectives (1993-1997). He has a distinctive voice that has narrated documentaries including World War II in HD Colour, Hitler's Bodyguard, The Story of the Third Reich and Secrets of World War II. In 2013 he narrated the dramatic television series The Bible. He has narrated many fictional and historical audiobooks including Rebecca's Tale, The Well-Beloved and The Thirty-Nine Steps.
Public Domain (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Summary
John Buchan takes us back to Edwardian Britain on the eve of the First World War in the modern thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps. An inexplicable murder drives the innocent Richard Hannay, on the run from a manhunt that never seems to end, to hide in remote Scottish moorland. Disguise and deception are his only weapons, as he struggles to decode the clues left by the murdered man to prevent the theft of naval secrets by an unfriendly foreign power. The best-known of Buchan's thrillers, The Thirty-Nine Steps has been continuously in print since its first publication and has been filmed three times, including the brilliant 1935 version directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The Thirty-Nine Steps was also a powerful influence on the development of the detective novel, the action romance, and the spy story.
Public Domain (P)2010 Tantor
Greenmantle
Summary
FNH Audio presents an unabridged reading of Greenmantle. Richard Hanney, hero of The Thirty-Nine Steps, returns in this exciting wartime sequel. Once again Hanney steps forward when his country needs him. Pulled out of the front line, he finds himself thrown into adventure and mystery behind enemy lines. The mystery of the Greenmantle secret weapon needs to be solved and dealt with before it brings ruin to the Allied cause.
©2015 John Buchan (P)2015 Felbrigg Napoleon Herriot
Greenmantle
Summary
In Greenmantle, Richard Hannay, the South African mining engineer and war hero first introduced in Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps, travels across war-torn Europe in search of a German plot and an Islamic messiah. He is joined by three others: John S. Blenkiron, an American who is determined to battle the Kaiser; Peter Pienaar, an old Boer Scout; and the colorful Sandy Arbuthnot, who is modeled on Lawrence of Arabia. Disguised, they travel through Germany to Constantinople and the Russian border to confront their enemies, the hideous Stumm and the evil beauty Hilda von Einem. Their success or failure could change the outcome of the First World War.
(P)1996 Blackstone Audio Inc.
Mr Standfast
Summary
FNH Audio presents an unabridged reading of Mr Standfast. In this thrilling adventure, Richard Hannay the star of The Thirty-Nine Steps and Greenmantle, returns to continue his personal battle against the enemies of Great Britain during the Great War. The war on the continent is raging. The German hordes are pushing the allies back into their trenches, the line is barely holding, and it's at this moment that Richard find himself pulled out of the lines for special duty. Going against everything Hannay believes in, he finds himself working undercover infiltrating a pacifist organisation. This group is not all it seems to be, as behind the pacifist masks there are German spies and saboteurs.
Public Domain (P)2016 Felbrigg Herriot
The Thirty Nine Steps
Summary
Among the first espionage thrillers and an acknowledged classic, The Thirty-Nine Steps well deserves its accolades as one of the best adventure stories of all time. Leaving aside the improbable denouement, the fast paced, brilliantly conceived narrative still excites and carries one along with the sheer suspense of the manhunt - a recurring theme in literature - and Hannay’s struggle against the evil that is the ‘Black Stone'. May 1914: Europe is close to war and spies are everywhere. Richard Hannay has arrived back in London to begin a new life, when a spy called Scudder asks for help to uncover a German plot to murder the Greek prime minister in London and to steal British plans for the outbreak of war. He claims to be following a ring of German spies called the Black Stone. A few days later, Scudder is murdered. Hannay is forced to continue Scudder’s work and is chased across Scotland both by police and German spies. The solution to the mysterious phrase 'Thirty-Nine Steps' is a thread that runs through the whole story. About Assembled Stories: Over the years the national press have reviewed Assembled Stories titles as ‘excellent’, ‘remarkable’, ‘entrancing’, ‘superb’, ‘magic for sure’, ‘masterly’, ‘wonderful’, ‘a class act’ and ‘a splendid example of audio at its best’.
©1993 John Buchan (P)2007 Assembled Stories
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Summary
Richard Hannay, Buchan's hero in this 1915 thriller, stumbles across a terrorist plot to destabilize Europe. A British spy in the mold of James Bond, Hannay is an action man with a polished veneer. After a series of murders, Hannay takes up the cause when he has to go on the run. A thrilling series of events come to an exciting conclusion. Table of Contents Chapter 01: The Man who Died Chapter 02: The Milkman Sets Out on his Travels Chapter 03: The Adventure of the Literary Innkeeper Chapter 04: The Adventure of the Radical Candidate Chapter 05: The Adventure of the Spectacled Roadman Chapter 06: The Adventure of the Bald Archaeologist Chapter 07: The Dry-Fly Fisherman Chapter 08: The Coming of the Black Stone Chapter 09: The Thirty-Nine Steps Chapter 10: Various Parties Converging on the Sea John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (1875–1940) was a Scottish novelist, short story writer, biographer and diplomat. The son of a minister, Buchan was born in Perth, Scotland. Buchan won a scholarship to Oxford and received several writing awards while studying classic literature. After traveling the world in diplomatic circles, Buchan spent time running for political office, publishing a magazine and writing spy thrillers. After success in many arenas and impressing many with his contributions during WWI, Buchan was appointed Governor General of Canada, where he served until his death. Upon his appointment, King George V, made him a peer.
Public Domain (P)2006 Alcazar AudioWorks
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Summary
This classic thriller, set in England prior to World War II, involves murder, mystery, a country-wide chase, espionage and international intrigue.
©1999 Audio Book Contractors, LLC (P)2014 Audio Book Contractors, LLC
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Summary
Hanney, an expatriated Scot, returns from a long stay in South Africa to his flat in London. One night he is buttonholed by an American who appears to know of an anarchist plot to destabilise Europe, and claims to be in fear for his life. Hannay lets the American hide in his flat, and returns later to find that another man has been found shot dead in the same building, apparently a suicide. Four days later Hannay finds the American stabbed to death...
Public Domain (P)2015 Caroline Miller
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Summary
Perhaps more than any other book, The Thirty-Nine Steps has set the pattern for the story of the chase for a wanted man. And, of the many writers who have attempted this kind of thing since Buchan, only a very few, like Graham Greene, have managed to sustain the tension in the same way. The story's extended chase scene inspired Alfred Hitchcock's movie of the same name. Buchan's best-known thriller introduces his most enduring hero, Richard Hannay - who, despite claiming to be an "ordinary fellow", is caught up in a dangerous race against a plot to devastate the British war effort. It begins calmly enough with a rather boring trip to London. Returning to his flat, Richard is shocked to find his neighbor dead on the floor with a knife in his back. Near the deceased is a small black notebook containing cryptic notes about the "thirty-nine steps" and a black stone. As the situation escalates, Hannay is mistaken for a secret agent by the police. Now Hannay is running for his life across the Scottish Highlands, thinking his way through narrow escapes while trying to decode the thirty-nine steps. With wit and flair, this old-fashioned roller coaster ride proffers soaring suspense with a comic touch.
Public Domain (P)1994 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Les 39 marches
Summary
Richard Hannay, fringant trentenaire, s'ennuie ferme à Londres... Plus pour longtemps : son voisin de palier, qui venait de lui révéler des informations hautement confidentielles, est assassiné dans son salon. Dépositaire d'un terrible secret, il se retrouve embarqué dans une folle course-poursuite à travers tout le pays. Traqué par les membres d'une puissance organisation secrète résolue à tout pour le neutraliser, Richard Hannay ne recule devant aucun stratagème pour leur échapper. Travesti tour à tour en cantonnier, vagabond, tribun politique, il ne résiste pas au plaisir de faire sauter le repaire de ses ennemis à la dynamite et de voler quelques voitures au passage. Une course contre la montre échevelée dont on sort pantelant, mais ravi ! Les Trente-neuf marches est un remarquable roman d'espionnage qui parait pour la première fois en feuilleton en 1914. Il rencontre immédiatement un très grand succès et sera l'objet de plusieurs adaptations au cinéma, dont la plus célèbre est celle d'Alfred Hitchcock, en 1935. John Buchan est un homme politique et écrivain écossais, connu pour ses romans d'espionnage et d'aventure. Il crée le personnage de Richard Hannay, modèle de l'espion moderne, qu'il met en scène pour la première fois dans Les 39 marches .
©1915 domaine public (P)2020 VOolume
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Summary
The Thirty-Nine Steps By John Buchan Narrated by Graham Scott Richard Hannay, returned colonial mining engineer, is thoroughly bored with life in London, and only a day away from taking the next boat back to the Cape. But then he encounters mysterious American spy Franklin P. Scudder, on the run from foreign agents seeking to prevent him from revealing an assassination plot designed to throw Britain into war with Germany. And when Scudder is murdered in Hannay's flat, Hannay finds himself on the run from both the police and Scudder's enemies - and bound in honour to pursue the dead man's work and save his country from disaster....
Public Domain (P)2019 Voices of Today
The Courts of the Morning
Summary
Sir Richard Hannay introduces this last adventure involving his old friends. John Blenkiron discovers that a ruthless industrialist is plotting to destabilise America and cause global turmoil. Although Bavarian born, Castor plans to dominate the world from Olifa, a small country in Latin America. Hannay realises he is now too old for the job of thwarting these evil designs and enlists the aid of his old friend Sandy Arbuthnot, now Lord Clanroyden. Fortunately, Sir Archibald Roylance and his wife, Janet, are honeymooning in Olifa and are able to lend a hand. Sandy decides that revolution is the way forward, and Buchan draws on his experience of the tactics of the Boers in South Africa to describe the action of the campaign. Also, the villain is captured, and Janet is instrumental in effecting his ideological change but at great cost. The novel was published in 1929. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that in the same year, American financial markets collapsed, giving another Bavarian national, who had been abusing his people, the opportunity to consolidate his power in Germany and, ultimately, make his insane bid for world domination.
©2016 Assembled Stories (P)2016 Assembled Stories
The 39 Steps
Summary
When Richard Hannay returns to London after an action-packed life in Rhodesia, he finds life unbearably dull. He is on the point of leaving the city in search of adventures, when mystery and intrigue turns up at his door in the shape of Franklin Scudder, Hannay’s neighbour, who turns out to be a spy trying to escape the clutches of a shady international organisation, bent on sparking a European war. When Scudder is mysteriously murdered and all the evidence seems to point to Hannay himself, he escapes to Scotland, bearing Scudder’s cryptic coded notebook, which he struggles to decipher. Hannay manages by cunning, skilful disguise and sheer pluck to keep one step ahead of his ruthless pursuers…and eventually works out the cipher to read Scudder’s mysterious notes, which refer to the 39 steps and the enigmatic Black Stone. But can Hannay solve the puzzle, thwart the criminals, and clear his name before Europe is plunged into turmoil?
Public Domain (P)2013 Red Door Audiobooks
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Summary
The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) is an adventure novel in the espionage genre by the Scottish author John Buchan. A classic of the genre, it is the first of five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an action hero with a knack for getting himself out of difficult situations. The Thirty-Nine Steps is a prototypical "innocent man on the run" adventure. Hanney lets a neighbor stay with him, who is being followed by an anarchist gang trying to steal British military plans. Then the neighbor is murdered in his apartment.... The novel’s film adaptations include Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 version, a 1978 version, and a 2008 version for British television. In 2003, the book earned a place on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's best-loved novels.
Public Domain (P)2019 Museum Audiobooks
The Thirty-Nine Steps (Adaptation)
Summary
I turned on the light, but there was nobody there. Then I saw something in the corner that made my blood turn cold. Scudder was lying on his back. There was a long knife through his heart, pinning him to the floor.’ Soon Richard Hannay is running for his life across the hills of Scotland. The police are chasing him for a murder he did not do, and another, more dangerous enemy is chasing him as well - the mysterious ’Black Stone’. Who are these people? And why do they want Hannay dead? An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English, adapted from the John Buchan original by Nick Bullard.
©1994 Oxford University Press (P)2008 Oxford University Press
Greenmantle
Summary
In Greenmantle, Richard Hannay, hero of The 39 Steps, travels across war-torn Europe in search of a German plot and an Islamic messiah. He is joined by three more of Buchan's heroes: Peter Pienaar, the old Boer Scout; John S. Blenkiron, the American determined to fight the Kaiser; and Sandy Arbuthnot. Greenmantle himself is partly modeled on Lawrence of Arabia. The intrepid four move in disguise through Germany to Constantinople and the Russian border to face their enemies - the grotesque Stumm and the evil beauty of Hilda von Einem.
Public Domain (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Summary
This is the classic adventure of Richard Hannay, who upon being buttonholed at his door by a mysterious stranger called Franklin P. Scudder, finds himself drawn into adventure and international intrigue with Europe on the brink of war, and the fate of England at stake.
Public Domain (P)2017 Michael Ward
The Great British Short Story Collection
Summary
A gripping collection of over 50 of the greatest short stories written by great British writers. 1. "The Missing Years" by Barry Pain 2. "His Brother's Keeper" by W. W. Jacobs 3. "A Madman's Manuscript" by Charles Dickens 4. "The House of Cobwebs" by Barry Pain 5. "Old Fags" by Stacy Aumonier 6. "A Long-Ago Affair" by John Galsworthy 7. "August Heat" by W. F. Harvey 8. "The Dabblers" by W. F. Harvey 9. "Rose Rose" by Barry Pain 10. "An Undergraduate's Aunt" by F. Anstey 11. "An Idyll of London" by Beatrice Harraden 12. "Hot Potatoes" by Arnold Bennett 13. "Bagnell Terrace" by E. F. Benson 14. "Malachi's Cove" by Anthony Trollope 15. "Moon's Gibbet" by Egerton Castle 16. "The Dancing Partner" by Jerome K. Jerome 17. "The Giraffe Problem" by Barry Pain 18. "The Man who was Blind" by Edwin Pugh 19. "The Perfect Murcer" by Stacy Aumonier 20. "The Other Side" by Count Eric Stanislaus Stenbock 21. "The Roman Road" by Kenneth Grahame 22. "At the Farmhouse" by E. F. Benson 23. "The Dead Hand" by Wilkie Collins 24. "The Wind in the Portico" by John Buchan 25. "The Smile of La Gioconda" by Morley Roberts 26. "The Room" by Stacy Aumonier 27. "The Octave of Jealousy" by Stacy Aumonier 28. "The Mark of the Beast" by Rudyard Kipling 29. "The Salt of the Earth" by Barry Pain 30. "The Diary of Mr. Poynter" by M. R. James ....and over 20 more exciting stories.
Public Domain (P)2015 Red Door Audiobooks
The 39 Steps
Summary
May 1914: Europe is on the brink of war. London is riddled with spies. Richard Hannay has just returned from Rhosesia, and intends to begin a new, quiet, sedentary life. But a shady man named Franklin Scudder calls on him for help. Scudder is a freelance spy who has just uncovered a German plot to murder the Greek Premier, thus forcing Europe into war. He is the only man living to have penetrated into the ring of German spies who call themselves the Black Stone. Scudder tells Hannay all he knows. The next day, Scudder is murdered in Hannay's apartment. Now Hannay must continue Scudder's work. And so, with the Black Stone and the police on his trail, Hannay is chased across the wild country of Scotland. And while dodging his pursuers, he somehow has to find a way to contact the right people with British Intelligence. For if Scudder's code book falls into the hands of the enemy, all is lost.
Public Domain (P)2012 B.J. Harrison