A Study Guide for Emmuska Orczy's "The Scarlet Pimpernel"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Emmuska Orczy's "The Scarlet Pimpernel," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jun 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535839440

Book preview

10

The Scarlet Pimpernel

Emmuska Orczy

1905

Introduction

The Scarlet Pimpernel, an archetypal adventure tale by Baroness Emmuska Orczy set in the period leading up to the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, was produced as a play before being published as a novel in 1905, with resounding success. Capturing the popular imagination, the work spawned a successful series for its author and has been repeatedly adapted for film and television—also recently becoming a Broadway musical—in the century since its publication. The story's renown can be attributed to its highly original notion of a superhero with a secret identity, adapted by many later writers; its well choreographed dialogue and plot, reflecting Orczy's greater critical success as an author of detective fiction; and the suspenseful pace, fueled by the ever-present urgency and danger characteristic of revolution.

In contrast to the swordplay and violence of the film versions, the novel features little actual action and derives much of its power from the theatrical strength of the characters. The Scarlet Pimpernel, the character for whom the work is named, is of course designed to be the source of most of the intrigue; his identity is revealed half-way through the novel, under circumstances that allow for a strikingly gradual revelation on the part of both his wife, Lady Blakeney (Marguerite), and the reader. Percy Blakeney's classical heroic qualities are well masked by seeming laziness, foolishness, and even stupidity. Marguerite, in turn, not only provides the eyes and ears through which the reader follows most of the plot but also serves as a primary agent of narrative action. Her decisions, which are comprehensively examined under a moral lens, are what drive the tale. By the end of the novel, only a cynically detached reader could fail to feel sympathy for the hero and heroine and to rejoice in their ethical and humanitarian success.

Author Biography

Emmuska Magdalena Rosalia Maria Josefa Barbara Orczy was born on September 23, 1865, in Tarna-Örs, Hungary. Her father, Baron Felix Orczy, was a conductor and composer and owned a significant estate, worked by peasants. Baron Orczy sought to modernize his farming operations by introducing machinery, but the peasants resisted, out of both superstition and concern for their livelihood. When Emmuska (also called Emma) was only three, during a party for her five-year-old sister, the peasants burned down the estate, inducing the family to leave the estate. Drifting through western Europe over the years, they stayed in Budapest, Brussels, and Paris before ending up in London when Orczy was fifteen.

Through her schooling, Orczy found herself leaning toward the arts, in part because her father's aristocratic standards did not leave much room for his daughters to pursue other sorts of careers. Her father encouraged interest in music, but she did not have a gifted ear; she instead developed a love for painting and drawing but eventually focused professionally on writing.