The Elusive Pimpernel

Baroness Orczy

ago 2014 · Open Road Media

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The most wanted man in France returns to the scene of his notorious adventures

In the early days of the Revolution, Sir Percy Blakeney—better known in Paris as the Scarlet Pimpernel—spirited innocent members of the French nobility to safety in England. The Reign of Terror has now turned on itself, with the demagogue Robespierre leading the purge. But there is one rival whom Robespierre wants to see die more than any other, and he is at his home just outside of London, far beyond the reach of the guillotine.
 
Citizen Chauvelin, ex-ambassador of the Revolutionary Government at the English Court and Robespierre’s chief spy catcher, is sent to bring Sir Percy back to France to be executed. With the help of a charming young French actress, Chauvelin gains access to Blakeney Manor and orchestrates a dispute that can only be resolved with a duel—a form of justice prohibited in England. Crossing the channel on his way back into the madness of the Terror, Sir Percy does not realize the full extent of the plot against him. But the Scarlet Pimpernel has never shied away from danger, and now is no time to start.
 
This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

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Baroness Orczy (1865–1947) was a member of the Hungarian aristocracy, and her family settled in London when she was a teenager. At Heatherley’s School of Fine Art, she met her future husband, Montague Barstow, and in 1903 the two collaborated on The Scarlet Pimpernel, a play about an English aristocrat’s adventures during the French revolution. The play and its subsequent novelization were great successes, and Orczy went on to write more than a dozen sequels featuring the Pimpernel and many other works of romance and mystery, including The Old Man in the Corner and Lady Molly of Scotland Yard.