4.3
The Scarlet Pimpernel
A timeless novel of adventure, intrigue, and romance is sparked by one man's defiance in the face of authority...
The year is 1792. The French Revolution, driven to excess by its own triumph, has turned into a reign of terror. Daily, tumbrels bearing new victims to the guillotine roll over the cobbled streets of Paris.… Thus the stage is set for one of the most enthralling novels of historical adventure ever written.
The mysterious figure known as the Scarlet Pimpernel, sworn to rescue helpless men, women, and children from their doom; his implacable foe, the French agent Chauvelin, relentlessly hunting him down; and lovely Marguerite Blakeney, a beautiful French exile married to an English lord and caught in a terrible conflict of loyalties—all play their parts in a suspenseful tale that ranges from the squalid slums of Paris to the aristocratic salons of London, from intrigue on a great English country estate to the final denouement on the cliffs of the French coast.
There have been many imitations of The Scarlet Pimpernel, but none has ever equaled its superb sense of color and drama and its irresistible gift of wonderfully romantic escape.
With an Introduction by Gary Hoppenstand
The year is 1792. The French Revolution, driven to excess by its own triumph, has turned into a reign of terror. Daily, tumbrels bearing new victims to the guillotine roll over the cobbled streets of Paris.… Thus the stage is set for one of the most enthralling novels of historical adventure ever written.
The mysterious figure known as the Scarlet Pimpernel, sworn to rescue helpless men, women, and children from their doom; his implacable foe, the French agent Chauvelin, relentlessly hunting him down; and lovely Marguerite Blakeney, a beautiful French exile married to an English lord and caught in a terrible conflict of loyalties—all play their parts in a suspenseful tale that ranges from the squalid slums of Paris to the aristocratic salons of London, from intrigue on a great English country estate to the final denouement on the cliffs of the French coast.
There have been many imitations of The Scarlet Pimpernel, but none has ever equaled its superb sense of color and drama and its irresistible gift of wonderfully romantic escape.
With an Introduction by Gary Hoppenstand
FictionClassicsThrillersEspionageRomanceHistorical
RELEASED2000
PUBLISHERPenguin
LENGTH288
LANGUAGEEN
Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi was born in Tarnaörs, Heves County, Hungary, the daughter of composer Baron Felix Orczy and Countess Emma Wass. In 1868, fearing a potential peasant revolution, her parents left Hungary. They lived in Budapest, Brussels, and Paris before settling in London in 1880. Orczy attended West London School of Art and then Heatherley's School of Fine Art. In 1894, she married illustrator Montague MacLean Barstow, whom she had met at art school. The couple had very little money, and Orczy started to work with her husband as a translator and an illustrator. In 1899, she had a child, and published her first novel, The Emperor's Candlesticks. In 1903, she and her husband coauthored her most famous work, The Scarlet Pimpernel. She went on to write over a dozen sequels to the novel. She also created a number of memorable detectives: Lady Molly Robertson-Kirk of Scotland Yard, who heads the "Female Department" (her cases are collected in *Lady Molly of Scotland Yard*, 1910); Monsieur Fernand, a Napoleonic-era secret agent (*The Man in Grey*, 1918); and Patrick Mulligan, a shady attorney (*Skin o' My Tooth*, 1928). Her greatest detective was the Old Man in the Corner, probably the first of the "armchair" detectives. He sits in a chair in a London tea shop, unraveling knots and intricate cases brought to him by Polly Burton, a young reporter. Many of these were later collected in *The Old Man in the Corner* (1909). [Leslie S. Klinger, *In the Shadow of Sherlock Holmes* (2011)]
4.3
The Scarlet Pimpernel
A timeless novel of adventure, intrigue, and romance is sparked by one man's defiance in the face of authority...
The year is 1792. The French Revolution, driven to excess by its own triumph, has turned into a reign of terror. Daily, tumbrels bearing new victims to the guillotine roll over the cobbled streets of Paris.… Thus the stage is set for one of the most enthralling novels of historical adventure ever written.
The mysterious figure known as the Scarlet Pimpernel, sworn to rescue helpless men, women, and children from their doom; his implacable foe, the French agent Chauvelin, relentlessly hunting him down; and lovely Marguerite Blakeney, a beautiful French exile married to an English lord and caught in a terrible conflict of loyalties—all play their parts in a suspenseful tale that ranges from the squalid slums of Paris to the aristocratic salons of London, from intrigue on a great English country estate to the final denouement on the cliffs of the French coast.
There have been many imitations of The Scarlet Pimpernel, but none has ever equaled its superb sense of color and drama and its irresistible gift of wonderfully romantic escape.
With an Introduction by Gary Hoppenstand
The year is 1792. The French Revolution, driven to excess by its own triumph, has turned into a reign of terror. Daily, tumbrels bearing new victims to the guillotine roll over the cobbled streets of Paris.… Thus the stage is set for one of the most enthralling novels of historical adventure ever written.
The mysterious figure known as the Scarlet Pimpernel, sworn to rescue helpless men, women, and children from their doom; his implacable foe, the French agent Chauvelin, relentlessly hunting him down; and lovely Marguerite Blakeney, a beautiful French exile married to an English lord and caught in a terrible conflict of loyalties—all play their parts in a suspenseful tale that ranges from the squalid slums of Paris to the aristocratic salons of London, from intrigue on a great English country estate to the final denouement on the cliffs of the French coast.
There have been many imitations of The Scarlet Pimpernel, but none has ever equaled its superb sense of color and drama and its irresistible gift of wonderfully romantic escape.
With an Introduction by Gary Hoppenstand
FictionClassicsThrillersEspionageRomanceHistorical
RELEASED2000
PUBLISHERPenguin
LENGTH288
LANGUAGEEN
Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi was born in Tarnaörs, Heves County, Hungary, the daughter of composer Baron Felix Orczy and Countess Emma Wass. In 1868, fearing a potential peasant revolution, her parents left Hungary. They lived in Budapest, Brussels, and Paris before settling in London in 1880. Orczy attended West London School of Art and then Heatherley's School of Fine Art. In 1894, she married illustrator Montague MacLean Barstow, whom she had met at art school. The couple had very little money, and Orczy started to work with her husband as a translator and an illustrator. In 1899, she had a child, and published her first novel, The Emperor's Candlesticks. In 1903, she and her husband coauthored her most famous work, The Scarlet Pimpernel. She went on to write over a dozen sequels to the novel. She also created a number of memorable detectives: Lady Molly Robertson-Kirk of Scotland Yard, who heads the "Female Department" (her cases are collected in *Lady Molly of Scotland Yard*, 1910); Monsieur Fernand, a Napoleonic-era secret agent (*The Man in Grey*, 1918); and Patrick Mulligan, a shady attorney (*Skin o' My Tooth*, 1928). Her greatest detective was the Old Man in the Corner, probably the first of the "armchair" detectives. He sits in a chair in a London tea shop, unraveling knots and intricate cases brought to him by Polly Burton, a young reporter. Many of these were later collected in *The Old Man in the Corner* (1909). [Leslie S. Klinger, *In the Shadow of Sherlock Holmes* (2011)]
