The Elusive Pimpernel
Baroness Orczy (1865–1947), 1908
★ 4.03 from 2.9k ratings on Goodreads
The Scarlet Pimpernel returns to Revolutionary France, and the spy he humiliated is waiting with a bargain, a locked prison and a very careful trap. A brisk, theatrical adventure with a brooding edge, told in ornate Edwardian prose and driven by disguise, pursuit and wounded pride.
Feels like unease, passion and humor. About adventure, identity and power.
Who it’s for
You may enjoy it if you like old-fashioned cloak-and-dagger stories where wit and costume matter as much as swordplay. Be ready for deliberately formal, long-sentenced prose that can feel slow to modern eyes, especially in the descriptive passages.
Why read it
It offers a tense cat-and-mouse game in Revolutionary France, with a hero whose charm is also a weapon and a villain who has learned from him.
Pages from the book
What a man wants when he is tired of being extraordinary.
All that was most human in him, all that was weak in this strong and untamed nature, cried aloud for peace and luxury and idleness: for long summer afternoons spent in lazy content, for the companionship of horses and dogs and of flowers, with no thought or cares save those for the next evening’s gavotte, no graver occupation save that of sitting at her feet. Her real fear isn't the prison but what waiting is doing to her mind.
The one real terror which she felt was that she would go mad. Nay! that she was in a measure mad already. For hours now—or was it days? … or years? … she had heard nothing save that rhythmic walk of the sentinel, and the kindly, tremulous voice of the Abbé whispering consolations, or murmuring prayers in her ears, she had seen nothing save that prison door, of rough deal, painted a dull grey, with great old-fashioned lock, and hinges rusty with the damp of ages. The festival is over; behind it, someone is packing a bundle to flee.
And when the crowd had passed noisily along, leaving behind it a trail of torn finery, of glittering tinsel and of scarlet berries, when the boom of the big drum and the grating noise of the brass trumpets had somewhat died away, wan faces, pale with anxiety, would peer from out the darkness, and nervous hands would grasp with trembling fingers the small bundles of poor belongings tied up hastily in view of flight. Baroness Orczy.Orczy, born in Hungary, first wrote the Pimpernel as a play with her husband Montagu Barstow in 1903; it ran in London for four years before she turned it into a novel.
Books that feel like this
More by Baroness Orczy
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Baroness Orczy, 1905
In the Terror, an English dandy and his glittering wife move through a France that is hunting a masked rescuer known only as the Scarlet Pimpernel.
The Old Man in the Corner
Baroness Orczy, 1909
A nameless man in a teashop solves London's murders from his chair, knotting string, while a young journalist listens — and never gets proof.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Elusive Pimpernel for me?
- You may enjoy it if you like old-fashioned cloak-and-dagger stories where wit and costume matter as much as swordplay. Be ready for deliberately formal, long-sentenced prose that can feel slow to modern eyes, especially in the descriptive passages.
- What is The Elusive Pimpernel like?
- A brisk, theatrical adventure with a brooding edge, told in ornate Edwardian prose and driven by disguise, pursuit and wounded pride. Feels like unease, passion and humor. About adventure, identity and power.
- What should I read after The Elusive Pimpernel?
- If you liked The Elusive Pimpernel, try The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas), City of Bones (Cassandra Clare) and The Sea Hawk (Rafael Sabatini).
A taste of the feed
The particular agony of walking into a room where everyone already knows each other.
It was, then, into the midst of this tumult and disorder that our young man advanced with a beating heart, ranging his long rapier up his lanky leg, and keeping one hand on the edge of his cap, with that half-smile of the embarrassed provincial who wishes to put on a good face. When he had passed one group he began to breathe more freely; but he could not help observing that they turned round to look at him, and for the first time in his life d’Artagnan, who had till that day entertained a very good opinion of himself, felt ridiculous.
The Three Musketeers · Alexandre Dumas
Being ninety percent certain is fine, until someone else does the arithmetic.
“You guessed? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me.” “I was ninety percent sure.” “I see,” Clary said. There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put his hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. “What the hell was that for?” “The other ten percent.”
City of Bones · Cassandra Clare
When the lights go out, what is the first thing you see in the dark?
Cracks of thunder follow; the skies grow dark and the rains come. A deluge, pounding the angry waters taken by surprise, distorting vision, crashing down on the giant spray, Geneva’s trademark on the lake, the jet d’eau, that geyser designed by man to dazzle man. When sudden revelations come, the gigantic fountain dies. All the fountains die and without the sunlight the flowers wither. The bright reflections are gone and the mind is frozen.
The Aquitaine Progression · Robert Ludlum
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