The Scarlet Pimpernel
The Scarlet Pimpernel Series, Book 1
by Baroness Orczy 1865–1947
The book, and the century it came out of.
An English fop with the finest lace in London leads a league that snatches aristocrats from the guillotine, and the Republic’s cleverest agent is set on finding out who he is. Orczy’s book was turned down by a dozen publishers; she and her husband staged it as a play first, it ran for four years, and the novel then sold in the millions — the first masked-hero double life in modern fiction, ancestor of every one since. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by David, Robert and Benazech among them.
A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.
The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Adventure & the Sea
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 264 pages
- Reading time
- about 5 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785501631472
60 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
1903 on stage, 1905 in print
Orczy wrote about the Terror for an Edwardian audience that had grown up on the idea of the French Revolution as the great cautionary tale of the age. She was Hungarian, from a family that had lost its estates in a peasant uprising, and had come to London with nothing.
A dozen publishers turned down the novel. The play succeeded first, and the book followed it — which is the reverse of the usual order, and the reason the story reads the way it does: entrances, disguises, curtain lines.
This book in culture: 9 versions
Most people meet a book like this one on a screen first. Here are 8 of them, the earliest and the most recent among them — and none of them is the book.
The whole afterlife of The Scarlet Pimpernel — screen, stage and beyond →
- 1917 The Scarlet Pimpernel Richard Stanton
- 1934 The Scarlet Pimpernel Harold Young
- 1941 "Pimpernel" Smith Leslie Howard
- 1950 The Fighting Pimpernel Michael Powell
- 1982 The Scarlet Pimpernel Clive Donner
- — The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel David MacDonald TV series
- — The Scarlet Pimpernel TV series
- — The Scarlet Pimpernel Frank Wildhorn dramatico-musical work
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
The Scarlet Pimpernel, first published 1905, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Adventure & the Sea shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501631472, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of The Scarlet Pimpernel?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Baroness Orczy's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 264 pages, which is roughly about 5 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
