Product Description

The first and most successful in the Baroness’s series of books that feature Percy Blakeney, who leads a double life as an English fop and a swashbuckling rescuer of aristocrats, The Scarlet Pimpernel was the blueprint for what became known as the masked-avenger genre. As Anne Perry writes in her Introduction, the novel “has almost reached its first centenary, and it is as vivid and appealing as ever because the plotting is perfect. It is a classic example of how to construct, pace, and conclude a plot. . . . To rise on the crest of laughter without capsizing, to survive being written, rewritten, and reinterpreted by each generation, is the mark of a plot that is timeless and universal, even though it happens to be set in England and France of 1792.”

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #125981 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-12
• Released on: 2002-11-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From AudioFile
With the stage debut of The Scarlet Pimpernel (1903), the Baroness Orczy invented the "masked avenger" genre of fiction--the swashbuckling hero of dual identity. Her progeny include Zorro, Superman, The Lone Ranger and many others. The Baroness's Pimpernel is a British fop who, in a play and series of popular novels, daringly spirited condemned innocents out of France during the Reign of Terror. Hugh Laurie, best known Stateside as the foppish Bertie Wooster in TV's "Wooster and Jeeves," plunges into these two adventures with childlike relish. Yes, he is corny; yes, he overdoes it; but irresistibly. That's what this fare is made for. As he reads, one pictures, not the dashing Leslie Howard, cinema's Pimpernel, but a little boy performing for the family behind his homemade puppet theater. Sorry, Baroness, I know this isn't what you had in mind, but it's far better. Y.R. An AudioFile Earphones Award winner. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
“Arguably the best adventure story ever published and certainly the most influential that appeared during the early decades of the twentieth century.”—Gary Hoppenstand

Ingram
As the French Revolution gives way to the Reign of Terror, an English aristocrat known for little more than dandyism and sloth, risks his life to enter France in disguise to save French aristocrats from Madame Guillotine. Reissue.

Customer Reviews

Very, Very, Very Good Book!!!
I really enjoyed this book, and I am defiantly going to read the rest of them! This is the first of many Pimpernel stories, and it is very good. It has lovable character, wonderful twists, and a heartbreaking Love story. My mother and I both read it and Loved it!! I totally recommend it for anyone of any age I was 15 when I read it a year ago, and My mother is in her 40's, and We both loved it!!

NOW THERE IS ONE THING I SHOULD WARN YOU ABOUT... The first few chapters are a little slow and you may be tempted to stop reading, but KEEP WITH IT!!!! It is so worth it!!!!!

Obvious and cliched
No doubt this was great reading 100 years ago. But to a modern reader, the book's age is apparent on every page. The central mystery of the book (the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel) is obvious well before it is revealed. The dialog is distractingly archaic and upper crust. The thoughts and concerns of the main character (Marguerite) are plain, without nuance or complexity, and by the end I was gritting my teeth every time she was described as "the cleverest woman in Europe." The book's first sentence is great, and the first chapter is very good, but it's downhill from there. Baroness Orczy may have invented a genre of literature, but it is so familiar to us now that the original appears tired. It gets one star for illuminating historical aspects of the French Revolution.

Fun, Exciting, Thoughtful, and Romantic
The Scarlet Pimpernel is set during the French Reign of Terror, when aristocrats and royalists were being beheaded in the name of "liberty, freedom, and brotherhood". The author creates The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, a band of Englishmen committed to helping aristocrats escape to England, and keep their heads. The head of this band of Englishmen is, of course, called by the code name The Scarlet Pimpernel. His identity is secret to all, even those he helps escape.

This sets the scene for a "Three Musketeers" style swashbuckling adventure story. It is fun and exciting, full of suspense that lasts until the very end. There is a nice love story woven quite naturally into the fabric of the plot, that manages to add to the plot without being syrupy. The story also includes some thoughtful moments that excute simply without bogging down the story in the least. Overall, a very enjoyable novel. It treads lightly on the moral/ethical issues surrounding the French Revolution, and deals mostly with an adventuresome story. Those looking for a more 'serious' fictional work of the French Revolution may prefer A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.