The Scarlet Pimpernel

Novel by Baroness Emma Orczy

Blurb

A timeless novel of adventure, intrigue, and romance is sparked by one man's defiance in the face of authority...

The year is 1792. The French Revolution, driven to excess by its own triumph, has turned into a reign of terror. Daily, tumbrels bearing new victims to the guillotine roll over the cobbled streets of Paris.… Thus the stage is set for one of the most enthralling novels of historical adventure ever written.

The mysterious figure known as the Scarlet Pimpernel, sworn to rescue helpless men, women, and children from their doom; his implacable foe, the French agent Chauvelin, relentlessly hunting him down; and lovely Marguerite Blakeney, a beautiful French exile married to an English lord and caught in a terrible conflict of loyalties—all play their parts in a suspenseful tale that ranges from the squalid slums of Paris to the aristocratic salons of London, from intrigue on a great English country estate to the final denouement on the cliffs of the French coast.

There have been many imitations of The Scarlet Pimpernel, but none has ever equaled its superb sense of color and drama and its irresistible gift of wonderfully romantic escape.

With an Introduction by Gary Hoppenstand

Member Reviews Write your own review

tarma

Tarma

This started out well, doing a nice job of getting across the horror of the guillotine... and then fell flat on its face once it slipped out of France and over to England, to discuss a very boring innkeeper, his very boring daughter, her very boring admirers, and a very irritatingly boring set of nobility who are all like dudes those poor people totally suck right? I stopped when I found myself wishing they'd been caught and beheaded back in France just so I didn't have to bother hearing about them.

0 Responses posted in December
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