The Laughing Cavalier

By Emmuska Orczy

Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi (23 September 1865 – 12 November 1947) was a Hungarian-born British novelist, playwright and artist of noble origin. She is most known for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel. This is one of her novels.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Classics
• Release date: Apr 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781609777616

Emmuska Orczy

Baroness Orczy (1865–1947) was initially born in Hungary but raised throughout Europe. She was educated in Brussels, London, Paris and Budapest where she studied creative arts. In 1899, Orczy would publish her first novel entitled, The Emperor's Candlesticks. It wasn’t a massive success but led to more writing opportunities including a series of detective stories. A few years later, she wrote and produced a stage play called The Scarlet Pimpernel, which she’d later adapt into a novel. It went on to become her most famous work and is considered a literary masterpiece of the twentieth century.

Reviews for The Laughing Cavalier

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Oh my lord this was stupid. It's partly a style thing - at the time (in all the books from this period I've read), the author was a lot more obtrusive than I'm used to with more modern books. It starts with random scenes with different people involved, and takes about 10 (short, admittedly) chapters to get everyone connected and the story actually started. And throughout those chapters, and slightly more lightly later on, the author is explaining and describing and, I guess, setting the scene - but the style drives me nuts. "If things had fallen out differently - if these gentlemen had been the slightest bit more thirsty - everything would have been different..." She says that, in slightly different words, about 5 times in one chapter. Bleah. So then the story starts - and each individual acts extremely stupidly at least once. Most of them act stupidly pretty much throughout - with the author pointing out how unwise their actions are, too, just in case I'd missed it. Elaborate plot to get Gilda out of the way - and as soon as it's done, no, no, bring her to the center of the action. We need to escape - so do an elaborate job of breaking down a window, rather than hurrying out the (open) door (which was, admittedly, closer to the enemy. But still). The link to the portrait is mildly amusing - probably would be more so if I'd ever knowingly seen it. But overall - I was so happy to _finish_ the stupid book...I was planning to read the entire Pimpernel series, or as many as I could find. I think I'll let that wait for a while, and a lot of good books, until I forget how stupid this one was...

[bjace_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Buckle my swash and call on Erroll Flynn. The perfidious Earl of Stoutenberg waxes threatening against the Prince of Orange and would murder and usurp him. When rich and beautiful Gilda Beresteyn hears men plotting to take the Prince's life, she is doubly troubled to find that one of the conspirators is her brother and another is her ex-fiancée. The conspirators know that Gilda will find some way to thwart them, she being so good and noble, so they hire a soldier-of-fortune to kidnap and hold her until their plot can be accomplished. The man, however, is merry, noble, strong and kind and he finds a way to destroy all their plans. Despite some turgid prose, this is fun. At the end of the story we learn that the character is the ancestor of Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel.