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The Scarlet Pimpernel was first published in 1905 and has proved to
be Orczy's most famous and popular novel. The work was originally
rejected by publishers, so she refashioned it as a play, with
little initial success. The Scarlet Pimpernel is set in 1792 during
the French Revolution, but centres on an English hero performing
great and brave deeds in a violent and murderous climate.
Marguerite St Just is a beautiful French actress, who is married to
the English fop, Sir Percy Blakeney. The couple have become
estranged as Marguerite has tired of her husband's seemingly
superficial lifestyle. She has heard about the exploits of the
mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel - an unknown English man - who is
daily helping French aristocrats to escape the Revolution. She is
captivated and entranced by the stories surrounding him but is soon
forced into a position where she must assist the French ambassador
to England in capturing the elusive man.
Citizen Chauvelin, of the Committee of Public Safety, presents
citizen Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor, with the most
extraordinary claim:
"The dangerous English spy known to the world as the Scarlet
Pimpernel," he says, "is now safely under lock and key. He must be
transferred to the Abbaye prison forthwith -- and to the guillotine
as quickly as might be. No one is to take any risks this time.
There must be no question either of discrediting his famous League,
or of obtaining other more valuable information out of him. Such
methods have proved disastrous!"
There are no safe Englishmen these days, except the dead ones --
and it will not take citizen Fouquier-Tinville much thought or time
to frame an indictment against the notorious Scarlet Pimpernel . .
. and "that" will do away with the necessity of a prolonged trial.
The revolutionary government is at war with England now, and short
work can be made of all poisonous spies!
English novelist and playwright Baroness Emmuska Orczy
(1865-1947) achieved enduring success with her novels of politics
and intrigue set during the time of the French Revolution.
A trail-blazing writer of great repute in her day, but now unjustly
neglected, Baroness Emmuska Orczy’s name was synonymous with the
mystery genre in the early twentieth century, particularly for her
Scarlet Pimpernel books, set during the French Revolution. But
perhaps the most revolutionary of her works is the lesser-known
Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, a short-story collection revolving
around Molly Robertson-Kirk, a fictional London detective –
indeed, published in 1910, Molly was one of the first fictional
female detectives, and served as a prototype for many that
followed. Beautifully presented and with helpful explanatory notes,
this edition celebrates Orczy’s heroine and aims to reintroduce
her for a new generation of readers.
So it must also come from those members of the Blakeney family
in whose veins runs the blood of that Sir Percy Blakeney -- who is
known to history as the Scarlet Pimpernel -- for they in a manner
are responsible for the telling of this veracious chronicle.
For the past eight years now -- ever since the true story of The
Scarlet Pimpernel was put on record by the present author -- these
gentle, kind, inquisitive friends have asked me to trace their
descent back to an ancestor more remote than was Sir Percy.
Strangely enough his history has never been written before. it
is to the man himself -- to the memory of him which is so alive
here in Haarlem -- that I am indebted for the true history of his
life, and therefore I feel that but little apology is needed for
placing the true facts before all those who have known him hitherto
only by his picture, who have loved him only for what they
guessed.
The monograph which I now present with but few additions of
minor details, goes to prove what I myself had known long ago,
namely, that the Laughing Cavalier who sat to Frans Hals for his
portrait in 1624 was the direct ancestor of Sir Percy Blakeney,
known to history as the Scarlet Pimpernel.
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Castles in the Air (Hardcover)
Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Emmuska Orczy; Edited by 1stworld Library
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R646
Discovery Miles 6 460
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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My name is Ratichon - Hector Ratichon, at your service, and I make
so bold as to say that not even my worst enemy would think of
minimizing the value of my services to the State. For twenty years
now have I placed my powers at the disposal of my country: I have
served the Republic, and was confidential agent to Citizen
Robespierre; I have served the Empire, and was secret factotum to
our great Napoleon; I have served King Louis - with a brief
interval of one hundred days - for the past two years, and I can
only repeat that no one, in the whole of France, has been so useful
or so zealous in tracking criminals, nosing out conspiracies, or
denouncing traitors as I have been. And yet you see me a poor man
to this day: there has been a persistently malignant Fate which has
worked against me all these years, and would - but for a happy
circumstance of which I hope anon to tell you - have left me just
as I was, in the matter of fortune, when I first came to Paris and
set up in business as a volunteer police agent at No, 96 Rue
Daunou.
"There have been more escapes" -- engineered by a band of
Englishmen of unparalleled daring who, in a mad spirit of sheer
meddling, devote their spare hours to snatching away lawful victims
destined for "Madame la Guillotine!"
No one has seen these mysterious Englishmen. As for their
leader, he is never spoken of, save with a superstitious shudder.
Scraps of paper appear from some mysterious source -- announcing
that the band of meddlesome Englishmen are at work . . . and always
it is signed with a singular device drawn in red, of a little
star-shaped flower -- called in England the Scarlet Pimpernel.
English novelist and playwright Baroness Emmuska Orczy
(1865-1947) achieved her greatest success with her 1905 novel set
in the time of Robespierre. Dramatized in collaboration with her
husband that same year, in its movie version, starring Leslie
Howard and James Mason, "The Scarlet Pimpernel" has become a
perennial favorite.
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