Books in Scarlet Pimpernel Series series

It is 1792 and France is in the grip of a seething, bloody revolution. Mobs roam the Paris streets hunting down royalists, barricades block any chance of escape, and every day hundreds die under the blade of Madame la Guillotine. But in the hearts of the condemned nobility there remains one last vestige of hope: rescue by the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel. Renowned for both his unparalleled bravery and his clever disguises, the Pimpernel’s identity remains as much a mystery to his sworn enemy, the ruthless French agent Chauvelin, as to his devoted admirer, the beautiful Lady Marguerite Blakeney. First published in 1905, The Scarlet Pimpernel is an irresistible novel of love, gallantry, and swashbuckling adventure.

The Laughing Cavalier The Story of the Ancestor of the Scarlet Pimpernel Baroness Orczy Set in Holland in 1623/1624, and published in 1913, The Laughing Cavalier, by the British novelist Baroness Orczy, revolves around Percy Blake, a foreign adventurer and ancestor of the Scarlet Pimpernel who goes by the name Diogenes who, we are told by Orczy, is the real subject of the famous painting The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals. The son of an English nobleman and a Dutch woman, his father abandoned his mother after Diogenes was born, and he was brought up by Hals in Haarlem. He has spent his life fighting in various battles as a mercenary for hire, but now, along with his two sidekicks – fellow 'philosophers' – Socrates and Pythagoras, he is back in Haarlem, penniless and looking for entertainment. The book is followed by The First Sir Percy. The book was promoted as "Hard riding, desperate fighting, romantic love, the flavor of olden days in the story of the ancestor of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL".

Sir Percy leads a band of musicians whose play is of questionable quality. Nonetheless, the disguise enables him to listen in to conversations as revolutionaries lay their plans in an ale house. But his mission on this occasion is to save the La Rodiere family and others from the Guillotine. The band uses the rabble to mask the rescue, as whilst they sing and dance around Chateau Rodiere, it becomes possible to outwit even Citizen Chauvelin, who has arrived on the scene. Treachery from within the band is afoot, however, and Sir Percy has to rely on wit and judgment to bring about an astonishing conclusion.

When Baroness Emmuska Orczy wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905), little did she know she was creating the super hero genre. Who is the elusive and mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel? A master of clever disguises, stealth and elegant escapes -- skills that he uses to rescue doomed French aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. His signature -- a tiny scarlet flower. The Pimpernel's true identity is unknown except to a small group of co-conspirators who work with him and together comprise the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Not even his wife, the beautiful Lady Marguerite Blakeney, knows that the man she is married to, an effete fop and dull-witted British dandy Sir Percy Blakeney, is a secret hero who risks his life on a daily basis in order to save countless others. A vibrant adventure awaits the reader -- heart-pounding narrow escapes, clever repartee and dashing wit, true love thwarted and redeemed, a relentless agent of the French Republican Government who makes it his personal goal to capture and destroy the Scarlet Pimpernel, and of course Percy's immortal "bon mot" that makes the social rounds in England and France: "We seek him here, we seek him there, Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven? -- Is he in hell? That demmed, elusive Pimpernel." Book One of "The Scarlet Pimpernel Series"

Lord Antony Dewhurst is ‘a splendid fellow – a fine sportsman, a loyal gentleman'. The young gallant is also Percy's close friend and a lieutenant in the League. The year is 1793 and in Nantes, France, the hunting of aristocrats goes on. And over in England, the enemy has kidnapped Lord Tony's wife, Yvonne. It falls to the Scarlet Pimpernel to rescue her.