THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL COLLECTOR'S SERIES EDITION [Deluxe Edition] Seven Emma Orczy Original Literary Classics With Photos & Illustrations Plus Entire BONUS Audiobooks

by BARONESS EMMA ORCZY, Featuring Dynamic Chapter Navigation & Professional Formatting for a Premium Reading Experience, Published by Northpointe Classics

Overview

THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL COLLECTOR'S SERIES EDITION - Seven Emmuska Orczy Original Literary Classics With Photos & Illustrations Plus Entire BONUS Audio

*** Featuring Dynamic Chapter Navigation Links and Professional Formatting for a Premium Reading Experience.

The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905)

The Old Man in the Corner (1908)

The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1919)

El Dorado (1913)

The Elusive Pimpernel (1908)

I Will Repay (1906)

The Laughing Cavalier (1914)


The Scarlet Pimpernel

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a play and adventure novel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, set during the Reign of Terror following the start of the French Revolution. The story is a precursor to the "disguised superhero" tales such as Zorro and Batman.

The play was produced and adapted by Julia Neilson and Fred Terry. It first opened on 15 October 1903 at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal; it was not a success. Terry, however, had confidence in the play and, with a rewritten last act, took it to London where it opened at the New Theatre on 5 January 1905. The premiere of the London production was enthusiastically received by the audience, but critics considered the play 'old-fashioned.' In spite of negative reviews, the play became a popular success, running 122 performances and enjoying numerous revivals. The Scarlet Pimpernel became a favourite of London audiences, playing more than 2,000 performances and becoming one of the most popular shows staged in England to that date.[citation needed]

The novel was published soon after the play's opening and was an immediate success. Orczy gained a following of readers in Britain and throughout the world. The popularity of the novel encouraged her to write a number of sequels for her "reckless daredevil" over the next 35 years. The play was performed to great acclaim in France, Italy, Germany and Spain, while the novel was translated into 16 languages. Subsequently, the story has been adapted for television, film, a musical and other media.

The international success of The Scarlet Pimpernel allowed Orczy and her husband to live out their lives in luxury. Over the years, they lived on an estate in Kent, a bustling London home and an opulent villa in Monte Carlo. Orczy wrote in her autobiography, Links in the Chain of Life:

I have so often been asked the question: "But how did you come to think of The Scarlet Pimpernel?" And my answer has always been: "It was God's will that I should." And to you moderns, who perhaps do not believe as I do, I will say, "In the chain of my life, there were so many links, all of which tended towards bringing me to the fulfillment of my destiny."

The Old Man in the Corner

Created by Baroness Orczy, author of the famous Scarlet Pimpernel series, The Old Man In the Corner was one of the earliest armchair detectives, popping up with so many others in the wake of the huge popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

The Old Man In the Corner (U.S. edition: The Man In the Corner) is one of three books of short stories featuring Bill Owen, Orczy's armchair detective (unnamed until after 'The Mysterious Death in Percy Street'), published after The Case of Miss Elliot; the last book in the series is Unravelled Knots.

The Man in the Corner first appeared in The Royal Magazine in 1901 in a series of six "Mysteries of London". The following year he returned in seven "Mysteries of Great Cities" set in large provincial centers of the British Isles. These were all narrated by Miss Polly Burton, a young journalist who related the narrative of the 'man in the corner', while eating at the Aërated Bread Company. For the 1909 book, twelve of these mysteries were rewritten in the third person. The Glasgow Mystery (the first of "The Mysteries of Great Cities") was not reprinted until all seven were collected in Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (1978).

The mysteries included in this volume are

The Fenchurch Street Mystery
The Robbery in Phillimore Terrace
The York Mystery
The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway
The Liverpool Mystery
The Edinburgh Mystery
The Theft at the English Provident Bank
The Dublin Mystery
An Unparalleled Outrage (The Brighton Mystery)
The Regent's Park Murder
The De Genneville Peerage (The Birmingham Mystery)
The Mysterious Death in Percy Street

The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel

The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel is a sequel book to the classic adventure tale, The Scarlet Pimpernel. Written by Baroness Orczy and first published in 1919, the book consists of eleven short stories about Sir Percy Blakeney's exploits in rescuing various aristos and French citizens from the clutches of the guillotine.

And 4 More ...

El Dorado (1913)

The Elusive P

Product Details

BN ID:	2940013691377
Publisher:	Northpointe Classics
Publication date:	01/17/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi (23 September 1865 – 12 November 1947) was a British novelist, playwright and artist of Hungarian noble origin. She was most notable for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel. Some of her paintings were exhibited at the Royal Academy in London.

Early Life

Emmuska Orczy was born in Tarnaörs, Heves County, Hungary, and was the daughter of composer Baron Felix Orczy de Orczi and Countess Emma Wass von Szentegyed und Czege. Her parents left Hungary in 1868, fearful of the threat of a peasant revolution. They lived in Budapest, Brussels, and Paris (where Emma studied music without success). Finally, in 1880, the family moved to London where they lodged with their countryman Francis Pichler at 162 Great Portland Street. Orczy attended West London School of Art and then Heatherley's School of Fine Art.

Although not destined to be a painter, it was at art school that she met a young illustrator named Montague MacLean Barstow, the son of an English clergyman; they married in 1894. It was the start of a joyful and happy marriage "for close on half a century one of perfect happiness and understanding of perfect friendship and communion of thought."

Writing Career

They had very little money, and Orczy started to work with her husband as a translator and an illustrator to supplement his low earnings. John Montague Orczy-Barstow, their only child, was born on 25 February 1899. She started writing soon after his birth but her first novel, The Emperor's Candlesticks (1899), was a failure. She did, however, find a small following with a series of detective stories in the Royal Magazine. Her next novel, In Mary's Reign (1901) did better.

In 1903, she and her husband wrote a play based on one of her short stories about an English aristocrat, Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., who rescued French aristocrats from the French Revolution: The Scarlet Pimpernel. She submitted her novelization of the story under the same title to 12 publishers. While she was waiting for the decisions of these publishers, Fred Terry and Julia Neilson accepted the play for production in the West End. Initially, it drew small audiences, but the play ran four years in London, broke many stage records, was translated and produced in other countries, and underwent several revivals. This theatrical success generated huge novel sales.