The Scarlet Pimpernel
1900
- classic literature
- adventure and adventurers
- british
- fiction
- text-books for foreigners
- english language
- historical fiction
- sir blakeney, percy (fictitious character)
- refugees
- nobility
The story
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905) is a play and adventure novel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy set during the Reign of Terror following the start of the French Revolution.
What it’s like
Brisk, candlelit adventure prose with the sheen of a Belle Époque novel: ballrooms of silk and powdered wigs set against the grim gloom of Paris prisons, carriages rattling through night roads, and a secret signature flower stamped like a wax seal on every daring rescue. The voice is theatrical and playful, full of flourishes and dramatic reversals, and the sensory world is one of candle smoke, velvet, and damp cobbles. Wit runs through the dialogue, and the pace is quick, chapter-by-chapter, with cliffhangers that make it easy to read one more. Its tone is swashbuckling and warm, with a steady undercurrent of dread about the guillotine that never lingers long on gore; violence is present but mostly offstage or brief, and the peril is one of suspense rather than brutality. A fine comfort read for a rainy weekend, a long train journey, or anyone who wants old-fashioned heroism, romance, and a clever disguise-and-deception puzzle, with a mannered, lightly romantic register that suits lovers of classic adventure fiction.
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