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Common Knowledge

Other names: Orczy, Emma Magdalena Rosalia Maria Josephina Barbara
Orczy Barstow, Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála, Baroness
Birthdate: 1865-09-23
Date of death: 1947-11-12
Gender: female
Education: West London School of Art
Heatherley's School of Fine Art
Occupations: artist
illustrator
novelist
translator
aristocrat
Organizations: Detection Club
Relationships: Korda, Alexander (producer)
Short biography: Emma Magdalena Rosalia Maria Josephina Barbara, Baroness Orczy, known as Emmuska, was born in Hungary, the daughter of Baron Felix Orczy, a landed aristocrat and well-known composer and conductor, and his wife Countess Emma Wass. She was educated in Brussels, Paris, and London, and exhibited her art work in the Royal Academy. In 1894, she married Montagu Barstow, a British clergyman and artist, and they worked together as illustrators and jointly published an edition of Hungarian folk tales. Orczy became famous in 1905 with the publication of her novel The Scarlet Pimpernel (originally a play co-written with her husband). Its background of the French Revolution and swashbuckling hero, Sir Percy Blakeney, was to prove immensely popular. Sequel books followed and numerous film and TV versions have been made with the first in 1934, produced by Alexander Korda, another Hungarian. Baroness Orczy also wrote detective and adventure stories. She inherited her family’s estate of Tarna-Ors in Hungary but continued to live in England until the end of World War I, when she and her husband settled in Monte Carlo.
Nationality: Hungary (birth)
UK (naturalized, 1910)
Birthplace: Tanaörs, Hungary
Places of residence: London, Middlesex, England, UK
Budapest, Hungary
Brussels, Belgium
Paris, Île-de-France, France
Monte Carlo, Monaco
Place of death: Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England, UK
Map Location: England, UK

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402 reviews

norabelle414 832 reviews

The Scarlet Pimpernel {audiobook} by Baroness Orczy

Marguerite St. Just was a beautiful, anti-Monarchist, French actress who fell in love with and married Sir Percy Blakeney, a handsome, rich, stupid, English aristocrat. Her brother, Armand, fell in love with a French Marquis’ daughter and was beaten almost to death for daring to love above his class. In revenge, Marguerite exposed the Marquis’ plot with Austria to overthrow the French government, resulting in the execution of the Marquis and his family. Now, Marguerite feels terrible show more guilt and is lightly resented by her husband and her wealthy peers over it. (But she mostly doesn't care because she's busy telling anyone who will listen how stupid her husband is, and also because no one actually shuns her because that would be common.)

Meanwhile, a League of wealthy English aristocrats are secretly working together to rescue wealthy French aristocrats from the common people of Paris, led by a mysterious man who signs his correspondence with a red flower (scarlet pimpernel). A French envoy to England, Chauvelin, discovers that Armand is helping the Scarlet Pimpernel (why would he do that? no reason given) and blackmails Marguerite into giving him information about the Pimpernel’s identity. Marguerite discovers that her husband is the Scarlet Pimpernel and is only pretending to be stupid and so now she loves him again, but it's almost too late. She races to France to warn Percy before Chauvelin captures him, but only finds an incredibly racist stereotype of a Jewish man. After hours of hiding in the back of an inn and then in the back of a wagon waiting for her husband, Marguerite is surprised to learn that the Jewish man was the Pimpernel all along! No one recognized him because Percy is super hot and the incredibly racist Jewish stereotype was so ugly. He has already tricked Chauvelin and rescued Armand, and Marguerite was so brave to hide in the back of that wagon so he forgives her for, uh, calling out a traitor.

It's really hard to put into words how much I hated this. The entire premise of the story relies on the “truth” that aristocrats are unquestionably superior to everyone else. The one non-aristocratic character whose thoughts we are privy to, an innkeeper, sincerely believes that he is privileged to be allowed to serve the members of the League who visit his business. The evidence that the commoners of France are bad people is that a similar French innkeeper only provides room and board in exchange for money without being deferential enough to the “well-born” customers. Quelle horreur! The only interesting dynamic here is that the English hate the French so much that it's almost subversive to care about even their most privileged elite. Nothing brings sworn enemies together like class war, I guess.

The age of the book is no excuse. 1905 is fifty years after Dickens was writing about social justice and over a century is plenty of hindsight to write about the French Revolution. Even Shakespeare managed to tell stories about aristocrats while writing their servants as fleshed-out human beings with their own thoughts and opinions. The book is only a “product of its time” in that the author was desperately clinging to the empire that gave her barony its power as it was about to decline and fall.

There is no doubt that the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror far overreached its original objective and executed many clergy and commoners accused of crimes without evidence or trial. However, the Scarlet Pimpernel does not care about them. There is no discussion among the members of the League about stopping the Reign of Terror, rescuing anyone else, or even destroying a guillotine or two. He only rescues wealthy and powerful aristocrats (whom the book repeatedly calls “innocents”).

The alleged cultural value of this story is as the prototype of a swashbuckling hero with a secret identity and a love triangle where two of the sides are the same person in disguise. However, I wouldn't consider rescuing aristocrats to be particularly heroic, and the only swashbuckling actions we see the Pimpernel take are disguising himself as an old woman and a gross stereotype. The doltish Percy is admittedly a great ruse, but Marguerite never has strong feelings about the Pimpernel one way or the other until after she discovers he's really her husband. I did enjoy that the book was so close on Marguerite's point of view throughout, so we always know her thoughts and the story is revealed to the audience at the same time as her, but that becomes a detriment in the second half of the book when she spends hours hiding in small spaces so she can watch the real action happen.

There could be some purpose in teaching this book in school literature class to show how the values and beliefs of an artist are reflected in their art, but there doesn't seem to be much critical analysis to that end around the internet. The story is culturally beloved but I didn't find anything to appreciate here aside from the audiobook narrator's hilarious foppish accent. show less

May 9, 2024210 other reviews

AdonisGuilfoyle 1,792 reviews

The Scarlet Pimpernel (Translated) in Modern English by Baroness Orczy

Every now and again, I check for retellings of my favourite classic books, but instead of a fresh take on The Scarlet Pimpernel, I found this and my mind boggled. 'Translated in modern English'? The original novel (1905) is written in modern English! Orczy is hardly Shakespeare or Chaucer. Anyway, with the 'translation' was free on Kindle Unlimited, how could I resist the experiment?

As the old folks on Facebook say, LOL. Did somebody get paid for ruining a 120 year old classic story, or was show more AI involved? Random words are changed to either no purpose - 'Ugh!' for 'Bah!' - or with the effect of inadvertently changing the meaning ('the bays had transformed into the massive gates of her beautiful English home' - neat trick!) Some French terms are taken out, others left alone. Historical terms relative to the eighteenth century era of the story are hilariously modernised, so that 'Jellyband switched off the vintage lamp', Chauvelin's spies have 'radar', and Marguerite's 'car' is waiting outside.

But oy vey, the dialogue surely wins the 'WTF?' award here. I knew I was in trouble when Marguerite announced 'Leave the poor guy alone!' and asked 'What's got you riled up?' instead of her original cutting remark of, 'What fly stings you, pray?' Chauvelin gushes, 'Oh wow! Is it really that bad?' like a teenager, and apparently Lord Hastings visited Suzanne's 'Mom' with an update about her 'Dad'. The most heinous transgression, however, is this:

We search for him here, we search for him there,
Those French folks hunt for him everywhere.
Is he in heaven? Or is he in hell?
That damned, elusive Pimpernel!

COME ON! Even those who haven't read the novel, and can't read in general, know 'They seek him here ...' Mucking up the national anthem ("May he reign over us for a long time, God save the King!) was forgivable compared to that disaster.

If you're so ridiculously dense that a 'translation' of a twentieth century novel is required, please stay away from my favourite novels. I'm not even ranking this one in case one star drags down the original title.

A crime against fiction. show less

Feb 3, 2025210 other reviews

AdonisGuilfoyle 1,792 reviews

Pimpernel and Rosemary (Scarlet Pimpernel Book 10) by Baroness Emmuska Orczy

Dear old Baroness Orczy, I do love you and thank you for creating the Scarlet Pimpernel, but you really should have stopped when you were ahead. I have previously tried to read this disaster of a sequel, ostensibly about Sir Percy's great great grandson ("Peter," she said, "is the great-grandson of Jack Blakeney, who was known as the Little Pimpernel, and was the Scarlet Pimpernel's eldest son. In face and in figure he is the image of that wonderful portrait by Romney of Sir Percy show more Blakeney."), but only just managed to get through the appalling purple prose by skim-reading. And even then, I knew exactly what was going to happen!

Rosemary Fowkes - not Ffoulkes, no connection to Sir Andrew, sadly - is Orczy's favourite type of heroine - beautiful, intelligent, independent and wholly dependent on the men in her life. She is supposedly a high profile political journalist, nicknamed 'Uno', but her career is merely a device to land her in trouble. She is asked to travel to Transylvania - which hasn't ended well in other novels - and write a series of mitigating articles about the conflict between Romania and Orczy's own Hungary for the English and American press. For some reason, she can't see a problem with this arrangement, especially when she can stay with Peter's Hungarian relations in their grand mansion. This despite dropping Peter - who wanted to make his fortune before marrying such a successful career woman (what happened to the Blakeney inheritance?) - and marrying 'dear, kind old Jasper', who plays the devoted swain but is quite clearly the villain of the piece. Rosemary, Jasper - and Peter - troop off to Transylvania and Rosemary realises that she has trusted entirely the wrong men.

The plot is a predictable rehash of The Scarlet Pimpernel but without interesting characters or any convincing (or understandable) danger and betrayal. I knew exactly who the Romanian spy was and couldn't care less about 'little Anna' and her boyfriend. My biggest issue, apart from the melodramatic writing - 'She had thought of her love as a heap of smouldering ashes, and lo! it had proved itself to be a devastating fire that burned fiercely beneath' - was with Orczy's rampant xenophobia and ridiculous prejudices bursting through in every other chapter. A few examples:

Elza, too, like her sister, had a magnificent figure, and the perfect hands, arms and wrists peculiar to her race.

Certain it is that his face and hands were swarthy, his nose hooked and his eyes very dark and piercing; characteristics which he had transmitted in a softened degree to his son Philip. But he was a man of culture for all that.

If there was gipsy blood in his veins it had given him nothing but physical beauty and the highly developed musical talent of that race.

Half Oriental in his capacity for lying

I must admit, I was suffering second-hand shame while reading these descriptions (and of friendly characters we're supposed to care about too!) Orczy is one of my favourite authors, or at least created some of my favourite books, but WOW. And the story is set in the early 1920s, not the eighteenth century. She even repeatedly uses an offensive cultural term throughout that had me thinking, 'Did I just read that?' Yes, this was written after the First World War and Orczy was proud to think of herself as British, but her writing has not aged well.

Oh! Almost forgot the references to physical abuse ('Being smacked did not hurt, but it acted as a tonic, and braced up Rosa's slackened nerves') and how scared Rosemary is that her own husband might rape her ('Rosemary would have struggled, would have screamed if she dared').

And for all that, we don't really get to learn much more about Peter or the Blakeney family - the painfully stupid Rosemary, who falls to her knees and prays when the going gets tough, is the centre of the action.

I can't stress this enough - even for fans of the Scarlet Pimpernel series, AVOID! show less

Jun 23, 20212 other reviews

JanelleBailey 1,424 reviews

The laughing cavalier by Baroness Orczy

Why do I love the Scarlet Pimpernel books? They’re such stereotyped nonsense I should be running the other direction. For example, despite her bravery and wit, the heroine in The Laughing Cavalier spends an inordinate amount of time either about to be unconscious, being unconscious, or recovering from a state of unconsciousness. The aristocracy are genetically superior, the servants are loyal and protective, and the men are either total curs or gallant heroes. And you better believe the show more hero in The Laughing Cavalier is the most gallant chivalric bloke you have seen since… well since the Scarlet Pimpernel. Be still my beating heart!
There’s also frequent muddling of POVs, (at one point I wasn’t sure whether the POV was the hero’s or the moon’s), contradictory tenses, and longwinded, flowery and generally pointless scenes. Perhaps all this proves there is much that can be forgiven in writing, as long as you get the most important things right – the story and the characters. And in the case of The Laughing Cavalier, these elements are dazzling.
There are many harrowing adventures, betrayal, conspiracies, dastardly threats, and of course impossible love, all leading to the inevitable happy ending. It was a bittersweet moment. While the hero and the heroine had finally overcome all to find love, there were so many unanswered threads. I spent the next twenty minutes pondering these and mourning the book’s somewhat inconclusive closure. And then I discovered… there’s a sequel! Oh happy day! (sighs emotionally and faints) show less

Oct 12, 20255 other reviews

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