The Scarlet Pimpernel

Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel is set in 1792, during the Reign of Terror that followed the start of the French Revolution. A league of English gentlemen works to smuggle French aristocrats out of the country before they can be taken to the guillotine, and no one knows who leads them; the only mark they leave is a small red flower, the scarlet pimpernel. In London, Marguerite St. Just, a celebrated French actress, is married to the wealthy Sir Percy Blakeney, whose visible accomplishments appear to be his clothes and his good-natured manner. Before the marriage Marguerite had taken revenge on the Marquis de St. Cyr, which led, without her intending it, to the guillotining of the Marquis and his sons, and when Percy learned of it he became estranged from her.

Sir Percy is leading a double life, and the discrepancy between the fop the world sees and the swordsman and master of disguise who actually runs the league is at the centre of the book. French agents are searching for whoever is behind the flower, and Marguerite finds herself in possession of knowledge about the Scarlet Pimpernel that she would rather not have.

The book opens Orczy's series of the same name and was published in 1905, after her stage play on the same subject, written with her husband Montagu Barstow, had opened in Nottingham in 1903 and gone on to a long run in London.