The Thirty Nine Steps With Audio Level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by Nick Bullard. '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 to 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?

Reading level: 4 [red].

This is Book 8, Collection II, of the Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP) readers. It is suitable for learners with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words. Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP) is a reading project for ESL/EFL learners at the elementary level (with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words). In two years, for about fifteen minutes each day, an ESL/EFL learner can read one million words, and reach the upper-intermediate level, gaining a vocabulary of about 3,500 words and a large number of expressions. Text Information Readability | 85.4 Total word count | 26104 Words beyond 1500 | 847 Unknown word percentage (%) | 3.24 Unknown headword occurrence | 2.44 Unknown words that occur 5 times or more | 40 Unknown words that occur 2 times or more | 151 Synopsis The year is 1914 and Europe is close to the First World War. Mining Engineer Richard Hannay is staying in London and is finding life in the city boring. One night, he is surprised to find Franklin Scudder at his door. Scudder is a spy and has information about a plan by German spies to steal the British plans for war. Hannay later finds Scudder killed in his flat and decides he must carry on Scudder’s work. With both German spies and the police after, Hannay must solve the riddle of the thirty-nine steps alone…. This book is rewritten from the novel “The Thirty-Nine Steps” by British writer John Buchan (1875-1940), which has been made into films several times.

Famous as the basis for several films, including the brilliant 1935 version directed by Alfred Hitchcock, The Thirty-Nine Steps is a classic of early twentieth-century popular literature. Richard Hannay has just returned to England after years in South Africa and is thoroughly bored with his life in London. But then a murder is committed in his flat, just days after a chance encounter with an American who had told him about an assassination plot that could have dire international consequences. An obvious suspect for the police and an easy target for the killers, Hannay goes on the run in his native Scotland where he will need all his courage and ingenuity to stay one step ahead of his pursuers.

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.