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    The Scarlet Pimpernel
    The Scarlet Pimpernel
    The Scarlet Pimpernel
    Ebook347 pages8 hours

    The Scarlet Pimpernel

    By Baroness Orczy

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    In the thick of the French Revolution, only one man stands as a savior to the aristocracy of Paris. The Scarlet Pimpernel is on a mission to whisk endangered nobles across the English channel while maintaining his alter-identity as a well-dressed English dandy. This fun tale of romance, adventure and intrigue was initially written by Baroness Orczy as a play and has been adapted for stage and screen.
    This Xist Classics edition has been professionally formatted for e-readers with a linked table of contents. This eBook also contains a bonus book club leadership guide and discussion questions. We hope you’ll share this book with your friends, neighbors and colleagues and can’t wait to hear what you have to say about it.

    Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes



    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXist Publishing
    Release dateApr 15, 2015
    ISBN9781623959609
    Author

    Baroness Orczy

    Baroness Emmuska Orczy was born in Hungary in 1865. She lived in Budapest, Brussels, Paris, Monte Carlo, and London, where she died in 1947. The author of many novels, she is best known for The Scarlet Pimpernel.

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    Reviews for The Scarlet Pimpernel

    4/5

    1,804 ratings90 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A classic, and for a good reason.The Scarlet Pimpernel is a daring tale set during the French Revolution. A mysterious Englishman, known only as the Scarlet Pimpernel, is devoted to rescuing those that the revolutionaries have condemned to the guillotine. A ruthless French agent is just as determined to find the Scarlet Pimpernel and send him to his execution. And it all hinges on the actions of one woman...Oh what fun! A smashing good read!Experiments in Reading
    • 3/5
      Great history, from both the classic sense of history and also in the sense of history of plotting in a mystery. The historical landscape is carefully described. It is also counterintuitive in terms of underdog/favorite dynamics. And the plotting itself is very clever, particularly so when you place it early on the development of mystery plotting. The chapters are short so it is also easy to pick up and set down.
    • 3/5
      Justly famous for it's theatrical style, outrageous intrigue and less-than-2-percent-body-fat plot. I enjoyed it despite the florid writing and simplistic, one-sided view of historic events. Still, I must say, if the French secret police were really this dense, I too could have duped them as often and with equal panache.
    • 1/5
      I have no idea why some people classify this novel as a classic piece of literature. Just because it was written over a hundred years ago doesn't automatically make it a great novel. Orczy is not in the same league as Tolstoy or Dickens or Shakespeare. She did not write a number of brilliant works that hold up to the passage of time and remain relevant. She did, I think, write the first superhero novel. I read that the creators of Batman were influenced by The Scarlet Pimpernel and I totally see that. At times I felt like I was reading the pulpy novelization of an action movie. I'm sure at the time of the release of this book (and the accompanying play) the plot seemed fresh and daring. Now, of course, it's just one long cliche and common trope. The comparisons to a Scooby Doo episode are not far off the mark.The plot is extremely far-fetched and the characters one dimensional. I kept waiting for a supernatural element to be introduced in order to explain the disguises the S.P. used. I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough - there is no way he could turn himself into a petite elderly woman. Just....no. He's supposed to be huge. How does he hide his height and girth? Hmmmm. And Marguerite -the cleverest woman in Europe! - spends hours with him while he is disguised and doesn't notice? Hmmm. The S.P.'s superhuman strength is also over the top. He is beaten so severely he loses consciousness yet he is still able to walk a mile and a half in the pitch dark through the rough countryside carrying Marguerite? Hmmmm. Orczy is a mediocre writer. If I read the word "inane" one more time I was going to scream. Were thesauruses not invented when she wrote the book? She tells the reader, she doesn't show the reader. Don't tell me Marguerite is "the most clever woman in Europe" over & over & over. Show me! Instead, Marguerite is incredibly dense throughout the book. I couldn't get over how she kept forgetting people - forgetting her husband, forgetting her brother, forgetting that guy that helped her get to France. Where was the cleverness? The romance between Marguerite and her husband befuddled me. They got secretly married after a whirlwind courtship because he was sexually attracted to her and she really enjoyed how much he desired her. She didn't love him but loved that he loved/wanted her so much. Then, after the marriage, they almost immediately have a falling out and never talk about it because both are too proud. Marguerite suddenly decides she passionately loves her husband because.....um, that wasn't totally clear to me. Because she found out he was secretly the S.P.? Or something like that.Finally, that crazy antisemitic chapter of the book "The Jew" - what the hell!?!? That came out of no where. It was like talking to someone at a party, thinking they are cool, when suddenly they start talking about n*ggers and f*ggots. Whoa! Didn't realize how horrible you were! Thanks for sharing that tidbit about yourself! It wasn't just that Orczy was showing some of her characters to be bigoted towards Jewish people. She, the third person narrator, was writing these horrid descriptions."His red hair, which he wore after the fashion of the Polish Jews, with the corkscrew curls each side of his face, was plentifully sprinkled with grey- a general coating of grime, about his cheeks and chin, gave him a peculiarly dirty and loathsome appearance. He had the habitual stoop, those of his race affected in mock humility in past centuries, before the dawn of equality and freedom in matters of faith, and he walked behind Desgas with the peculiar shuffling gait which has remained the characteristic of the Jew trader in continental Europe to this day.""She felt as if he held Percy's fate in his long, dirty hands.""The eyes of the Jew shot a quick, keen glance at the gold in his interlocutor's hand.""With a final, most abject and cringing bow, the old Jew shuffled out of the room."Talk about a buzz kill. I was already having issues with the book and that chapter was like the final nail in the coffin. I give the book 2 stars because it does have a historical interest in the sense that Orczy created a Batman/Superman sort of hero and that is intriguing. Also, I am a sucker for books set in that time period. Even mediocre books like this one.
    • 4/5
      Defined at its most basic level, a superhero is a vigilante with a secret identity and a gimmick that sets them apart from ordinary vigilantes. Hungarian-born British playwright Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orci’s The Scarlet Pimpernel features as its titular main character a British aristocrat who uses disguises to conceal his identity as he aids nobles in their escape from the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, signing his notes to his accomplices and his taunts to the French authorities with a scarlet pimpernel flower (Anagallis arvensis). Baroness Orczy based this 1905 novel on her original 1903 play, with her superhero predating Johnston McCulley’s Zorro by 14 years and Walter B. Gibson’s The Shadow by at least 25 years (depending on if one begins with the play or novel and counts The Shadow’s first radio appearance or the first magazine story), though the first superheroes as most know them wouldn’t appear until 1938 and ’39 with Superman and the Batman, respectively. Baroness Orci published five further novels and one short story collection before the appearance of Zorro in 1919, an additional four novels and short story collection before the appearance of The Shadow, and three more novels before the first appearance of Superman, with her final Scarlet Pimpernel novel, Mam’zelle Guillotine, appearing in 1940. In total, Baroness Orczy’s superhero appears in eleven novels and two short story collections, with the series also including two novels about his ancestor and one about his descendant.The basic plot revolves around Sir Percy Blakeney, a baronet who uses the guise of the Scarlet Pimpernel to rescue French aristocrats. Like the Batman years later, Sir Percy Blakeney acts “the lazy nincompoop, the effete fop, whose life seemed spent in card and supper rooms” so as to throw off those who would discover the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel (pg. 128). Madame Orczy describes Sir Blakeney’s mansion in terms that similarly recall Wayne Manor, all of it a further part of his disguise as a vain aristocrat (pg. 129). Citizen Chauvelin pursues the Pimpernel on behalf of the Committee of Public Safety, seeking to discover his identity and prevent him aiding aristocrats in their escape. Meanwhile, Marguerite Blakeney, the wife of Sir Percy, stumbles across and inadvertently reveals his identity after Chauvelin’s attempts to blackmail her by threatening her brother, Armand St. Just, who still resides in France and is threatened by the republican forces currently orchestrating the Reign of Terror. In many way, the various aristocrats’ discussion of the Scarlet Pimpernel coupled with the misunderstandings between Marguerite and others reflect some of the drawing room farces popular only a decade prior to the novel’s publication in the Victorian era. Like any proper superhero story, the Pimpernel’s adventures continued as Baroness Orczy published a sequel, I Will Repay, one year later in 1906. The third act does have some alarming ethnic stereotypes reflective of the period in which Baroness Orczy wrote, but the rest is entertaining and the work itself is worthy of study for its place in genre fiction. This edition, part of ImPress’s “The Best Mysteries of All Time” series, reprints the original 1905 text in its entirety with a red leather cover. It makes a lovely gift edition for fans of the original work or book collectors looking to add to their shelves.
    • 5/5
      Action-packed! Old-fashioned spy story...
    • 4/5
      That was good fun.
    • 4/5
      I LOVE this story!! I have read every version and adaptation, even the graphic novel!! I have also seen pretty much every version on film! The espionage, the duplicity, the tension, and drama are fantastic! Not to mention that the Scarlet Pimpernel is just the greatest pre-super hero, hero EVER!!!!
    • 4/5
      I listened to the audio book, narrated by Mary Sarah. Audio books can be tricky, because loving it often depends on how good the narrator is. I thought that Mary Sarah was a great narrator and she added to the experience of the book.

      The Scarlet Pimpernel started off a little slowly to give readers an idea of setting and main characters. After these are established it's a page turner. I almost stopped the audio so that I could read the story myself, it pulled me in.

      As always, leaves me wanting more of the story, more of Marguerite and Percy and just more of this unassuming hero, using the prejudices of his society to save the innocent.
    • 4/5
      I was unaware that this book takes place in 1792, in the thick of the French Revolution.
    • 3/5
      Yes, I realize this is a novel *against* the French Revolution (as my publisher so helpfully pointed out). Orczy's writing is gripping and the plot moves along quickly, reminding me of a reverse-Dickens novel.
    • 4/5
      I am a fan of the masked hero type. Zorro and Batman and the like. So you might want to take what I say with a grain of salt because I think I was predisposed to like this novel. And I did like it. There are less of the heroic adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel here than you may expect. You hear about his breathless, selfless rescues more than you actually get to see them. A lot of the book is told from the point of view of Lady Blakeney so the reader stays in England with her instead of getting to go to France with the Scarlet Pimpernel. But you still get to hear how he fools the French and does all sorts of heroic things. I think the events hold more surprises for the characters than they do for the reader but I don't think that hurts the story. Sometimes the 'I just want to be able to die beside my beloved' emotion of Lady Blakeney gets to be a bit much. And I have to admit that I was getting tired of being told that she was ever so clever, even though at times she didn't act like it. Over all I really liked it. It is fun and exciting with some suspense and romance.
    • 4/5
      When I first saw this on my list as a book to read in honor of love and Valentine's Day I almost thought there was a mistake. The beginning of the book is mayhem. Taking place during the French Revolution and the Year of Terror people are being sent to the "Madame Guillotine" left and right. To make matters worse, the heroine of the story, Lady Marguerite Blakeney is disgusted by her dull, slow-witted, lazy husband. Death and indifference. What kind of love story is that?My advice? Keep reading. This is a classic love story wrapped up in an adventure mystery full of intrigue. Lady Marguerite harbors a horrible skeleton in her closet. Out of revenge for her brother (because blood is thicker than water) she sent an entire family to the guillotine. The punishment didn't fit the crime and Marguerite is ashamed of her prior actions. However, this event taints her marriage to Sir Percy Blakeney and as time goes on their relationship grows colder and colder, falling further and further out of love. Complicating matters is a crafty hero calling himself the Scarlet Pimpernel. He and his "League" are going around and rescuing citizens from the guillotine. His arch enemy, Chauvelin, is determined to uncover his real identity and he enlists Marguerite's help using her brother as bait. What Marguerite doesn't know is that her dull, slow-witted, lazy husband is none other than the Scarlet Pimpernel himself.
    • 4/5
      This classic story of an English aristocrat rescuing doomed French aristocrats from the guillotine in the Reign of Terror through ingenious disguises and escapes has been mimicked so many times (including in the third series of Blackadder) that it seems very familiar, though I had not read it before. It is, in fact, enormously good fun, though the characters on all sides are extremely stereotyped and the view of the French Revolution portrayed here as simplistic as one would expect from this traditionally conservative-minded Austro-Hungarian aristocrat. The only somewhat more nuanced characters are Marguerite St Just and her brother Armand, liberal republicans who supported the Revolution in the early days but have become disillusioned with terror and bloodshed. Enjoyed as pure romantic escapism the novel works, and the Baroness can undoubtedly come up with a good turn of phrase. Aside from the simplistic presentation, the chronology isn't quite right - this is set in September 1792 at the time of the appalling prison massacres, but well before the period known as the Reign of Terror when Robespierre was the leading figure, which really began only from summer 1793. 3.5/5
    • 3/5
      So, I liked this book. It's definitely a fast and easy read. It's also worth noting that, if you're an adult, it's somewhat predictable. However, that doesn't mean it isn't interesting.

      What I liked most about The Scarlet Pimpernel was the fact that the characters are all, pretty much without exception, blind to any reality that doesn't fit into their preconceived world views. As a result, they cause themselves immense trouble and pain--all because they simply don't PERCEIVE things. The Scarlet Pimpernel, who we as readers expect to be the exception to this rule, is no different, and he too suffers for it. He cannot see Marguerite's pain, just as she cannot see his, and they both suffer in silence. He relies on his evaluation of her as a Republican. She relies on her perception of him as an inane fool. They are both terribly wrong.

      In the end, I think the self-limitations the characters impose on themselves through their quick judgments and closed perspectives speak to the same weaknesses of the human condition that novel tells us inspired the French Revolution. That is, our (heroic) characters tell us that the French Republic is committing atrocities by following their preconceived notions of aristocrats and unjustly murdering an entire social class. At the same time, our characters are unjustly condemning and judging one another on a personal level. As the French disrupt and ruin their society, our characters disrupt and ruin their own lives, all through the same mechanism--abrupt and unconsidered judgment that prevents the observer from seeing anything that he or she has labeled as "impossible." It is, the Republic says, impossible to have a valiant aristocrat. It is, Marguerite says, impossible that Percy is more than what he seems. Again, our author shows us as readers just how dangerous these premature internal decisions are for everyone involved! I found this theme to be very nicely wrought in the novel, and this concept was definitely the most thought-provoking and redeeming part of the work for me.
    • 5/5
      In the years after the French Revolution The Reign of Terror holds sway as ordinary citizens hold the reins of government and seek revenge on the aristocracy until thd streets run red with the relentless work of the guillotine.Enter The Scarlet Pimpernel, whose bold daring and sharp cunning effect the rescue of many French nobles from under the noses of the authorities.I really loved this book! Intrigue, romance, suspense, adventure ... it had it all!
    • 4/5
      I'm a huge fan of several movie versions of The Scarlet Pimpernel, but I had never read the book until now. How would it compare to the movies I love so much? Very well indeed. It's neither better nor worse than the movies – just a few plot differences. It's just the sort of book I look for when I want to escape to a different time and place – historical fiction with equal parts adventure and romance. Maybe the best thing about it is that there are sequels, so I have more reading escapes to look forward to!
    • 4/5
      The Reign of Terror in France is in full swing and members of the Royalty are getting their domes loped off left and right by the handy-dandy guillotine. With the help of the infamous “Scarlet Pimpernel” many are fleeing the country to the safe shores of England. Unfortunately the Pimpernel, whose identity is a mystery, is being hunted by the French. Marguerite, a French woman who made it out of the country, is being blackmailed to help with the search for the Pimpernel. Her estranged husband, Sir Percy Blakeney, disapproves of her past actions and she’s left to find a solution on her own. SPOILERSI really loved the ending. It wasn’t shocking, but I felt like it was a good twist and wrapped everything up nicely. In a funny way, it reminded me of Batman. The story of a dimwitted playboy who is actually a super hero saving lives. He never tells his love interest who he is, but he manages to save her and others multiple times. It felt like a super hero action movie. SPOILERS OVER BOTTOM LINE: It’s fun and entertaining; a great adventure book, but don’t expect too much depth. Read it if you’re in the mood for a bit of swashbuckling.“A woman’s heart is such a complex problem, the owner thereof is often most incompetent to find the solution of this puzzle.” 
    • 5/5
      Wonderful book. I wished it covered more of the Reign of Terror but it was a light-hearted read.
    • 5/5
      Oh what a lovely book. Don't let the historical setup fool you- it's basically a good old fashioned melodrama with a few thriller moments thrown in. I saw the old black-and-white movie a while ago, and while entertaining, it does not do justice to the story and the characters. It's truly a "big R" Romantic novel- larger than life heroes and villains, life-and-death choices, tragedy, humor and a few distinct love stories all blended together in a tightly written plot. Do yourself a favor- take a break from modern fast paced, world-weary fiction and spend some time with the characters and the world of Scarlet Pimpernel. You'd be surprised at how enjoyable the experience will be.
    • 4/5
      Loved it, as usual. This is a comfort book - well worn, familiar, and great. I don't know how many times I've read it, but it has to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30 over the years.
    • 3/5
      Well i've started reading some old classics because I can and this one was OK; but just way to simple and oh soooo predictable
    • 4/5
      This is another one of those books that I'm puzzled why I never came across years ago. Set in the time of the French Revolution, it's an entertaining and fast-paced adventure and love story that (in my mind) was like a cross between Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities and something by Alexandre Dumas.I found it refreshing that this story was told from the perspective of a resourceful (for her time?) young woman...although as a modern reader, I would have preferred that she played an even more active/pivotal role in the final dramatic events.A fun and quick read.
    • 4/5
      Because I originally read this in high school English class, I always had the idea that this book was considered capital-L Literature, but I've since realized that it's actually rather trashy. It goes down smooth--quick and very easy to read.

      This rereading left me with the idea of The Scarlet Pimpernel as the Twilight of its time, only with an adventure/historical fiction theme instead of fantasy. Between the melodrama and angst, the sweeping mysteries and secrets, the excessive physical descriptions, the sometimes lolarious writing...I'm sorry to say that I caught a resemblance.

      That said, I really like The Scarlet Pimpernel. The late-night scene between Percy and Marguerite after the Lord Grenville's ball is a favorite. I have a hard time picturing Marguerite as a blue-eyed strawberry blonde, despite what Orczy has to say about it.
    • 4/5
      This was one of "the classics" that I chose to read in 2014. And I am glad that I did."The Scarlet Pimpernel" has history, action, romance, devotion, evil, and suspense all stirred together in a light-hearted romp through England and France during the time of the French Revolution.Can the famous Pimpernel be warned in time of his betrayal by one close to him? Or will the dastardly representative of the bloodthirsty French Republican government, Chauvelin, triumph, and bring his quarry to meet Madame Guillotine? Keep reading to find out...
    • 4/5
      This book was one of my most impulsive reads. This one wasn't in my TBR, in any of the lists I sometime follow (that I know of), was not part of any Book Club reads, real life ones or otherwise, nor was it a recommendation. Long story short, I got around to reading it and well, it was quite interesting for a grim subject - the French Revolution.This was my second book (after A Tale of Two Cities, but while The Tale of Two Cities went right into the heart of the matter, this one flirted and skirted around the issue, which is probably also the reason for it be the more cheerful of the two.There is mystique (even if quite predictable), drama, and a sense of anticipation in the entire book. The length was just right, any longer and it would have been a drag. So was the general tone, tenor and characters - the good guys were really good, the bad really evil and the good guys with bad deeds, repentant, which made for some easy, uncomplicated reading.While I am not really tempted as of now to read the sequels, for a standalone book, it worked out quite well.
    • 4/5
      One of the better romance/adventures. The book is more Marguerite's story than the Scarlet Pimpernel's, unlike every stage and screen adaptation (so far as I'm aware). It leans towards melodrama at moments- to be expected of a book that follows the Tale of Two Cities version of the French Revolution, with numbers of executions happening daily in 1792 which weren't reached except for the worst parts of 1794- but the original duel identity hero who has influenced everything from Zorro to Batman holds his own in the test of time.
    • 4/5
      Sir Percy and Lady Blakeney are highly lauded in British society. He is the most foppish dandy about Town and she admired for her rapier sharp wit. Though in public he plays the fop, Sir Percy is actually a master of disguise who rescues French nobles from the forces of the French Revolution. When his identity is compromised, Lady Blakeney must find a way to warn him without compromising his mission. As one of the first novels written about a masked hero, I have to say I really enjoyed this book. Yes it is a classic (it was originally published in 1905) but it is entertaining and very readable. I would suggest it to readers who enjoy political intrigue and adventure.
    • 5/5
      The best book I've ever read!An interesting note: The Scarlet Pimpernel is the first Hero with an alter-ego, Sir Percy Blakeney, setting the standard of heroism up to which Zorro/Don Diego, Superman/mild-mannered Clark Kent, and Batman/Bruce Wayne must measure.
    • 4/5
      A fun book. I read because I was in the play and I was doing some background work, but ended up thoroughly enjoying the book anyway. A melodrama with sword fights, disguises and a female as the leading character. Though I do believe that Chauvelin is the only pure character in the book, he has a cause and is letting that guide him.

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    The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy

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