The Scarlet Pimpernel

Description

The Scarlet Pimpernelby Baroness Emmuska OrczyIn 1792, when the hated aristocrats were being mowed down in France by Madame Guillotine, an intrepid Englishman hid his identity under the nom-de-guerre of "The Scarlet Pimpernel," and headed a band of twenty noblemen whose object was to save as many of the French aristocracy as possible.

Promotion info

A swashbuckling classic of action-adventure with one of the most distinctive heroes in fiction - the flamboyant Scarlet Pimpernel. With an introduction by Dame Hilary Mantel, the Booker prize-winning author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies

Author description

Baroness Emma Orczy was born in Hungary in 1865, the daughter of the composer Baron Felix Orczy de Orci. The Orczy family, fearing a peasant revolution, left their country estate for Budapest in 1868 and settled in London in 1880. There Emma attended art school and met her future husband, a clergyman's son, Montague MacLean Barstow. Following the birth of their only child, she began writing historical novels and plays to supplement his low income. The Scarlet Pimpernel was her first play (and third novel) and proved an enormous success in both mediums. Orczy went on to pen over a dozen sequels, as well as many other novels. She died in Oxfordshire in 1947.