Baroness Emma Orczy, usually known as Baroness Orczy or to her family and friends as Emmuska Orczy, was a Hungarian-born British novelist and playwright. She is best known for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel, the alter ego of Sir Percy Blakeney, a wealthy English fop who turns into a quick-thinking escape artist in order to save French aristocrats from "Madame Guillotine" during the French Revolution, establishing the "hero with a secret identity" in popular culture.
Portrait of Baroness Emma Orczy by Bassano
H.M. Brock's cover of Baroness Orczy's The Old Man in the Corner (popular edition, Greening & Co., London, 1910).
The Laughing Cavalier was serialised in Adventure in 1914
The Scarlet Pimpernel is the first novel in a series of historical fiction by Baroness Orczy, published in 1905. It was written after her stage play of the same title enjoyed a long run in London, having opened in Nottingham in 1903.
1908 edition
Fred Terry as Sir Percy Blakeney/The Scarlet Pimpernel in the 1905 West End theatre production.
A scarlet pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis) which the eponymous hero leaves behind after his interventions.
Leslie Howard as Sir Percy Blakeney with Merle Oberon as Lady Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
