The Scarlet Pimpernel

About the book

During the French Revolution, an elusive English adventurer helps threatened aristocrats escape across the Channel. His identity becomes a matter of urgent interest to the revolutionary agent Chauvelin and an object of fascination in English society. Marguerite Blakeney is drawn into the pursuit through pressures involving her family, her past, and her difficult relationship with her apparently frivolous husband. Orczy builds suspense from disguise, withheld knowledge, and the risk of mistaking a public performance for a person's whole character. The novel's sympathies shape its strongly partisan picture of revolutionary France. Its central pleasure is the unfolding contest between a pursuer who believes he can control events and people whose concealed intentions make every conversation potentially more consequential than it first appears.

• Disguise
• Loyalty
• Trust

Why read it

For a brisk adventure of secret identities and divided loyalties, with domestic misunderstanding woven into political pursuit.

English text