Baroness Orczy

The Laughing Cavalier is a 1913 adventure novel by Baroness Orczy, which revolves around Percy Blake, a foreign adventurer and ancestor of Orczy's famous character, the Scarlet Pimpernel. The story takes place in Holland in 1623/1624 and is partly inspired by Frans Hals' painting The Laughing Cavalier: in the novel, Blake is Frans Hals' adopted son and the man who poses for the painting of the Laughing Cavalier. The sequel to this book, continuing the story of Percy Blake, is The First Sir Percy. In March 1623, the Dutch nobleman Willem van Oldenbarnevelt, Lord of Stoutenburg, is on the run. His father, the statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt ("John of Barneveld" in the book) was falsely accused of treason and sent to the gallows by the Stadtholder, Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange in 1619; and his brother Reinier van Oldenbarnevelt, the lord of Groeneveld, has since been arrested and executed for plotting to kill the Prince. Stoutenburg is now a fugitive and determined to get his revenge. Stoutenburg asks for shelter from Gilda Beresteyn, the daughter of a rich merchant. Gilda was once in love with Stoutenburg, but has never forgiven him for abandoning her to make a more profitable marriage. Despite her reservations she shelters him for a short time, but eventually she sends him away, knowing that her father, a friend of the Prince of Orange, will not approve. Nine months later, Gilda is walking through Haarlem to the New Year's Eve service and sees three foreign adventurers intervening to protect a Spanish woman who is being attacked by a mob. After the fracas is over, Gilda speaks to the three men. They are mercenaries who call themselves after famous philosophers: "Diogenes," "Socrates," and "Pythagoras." Gilda is attracted to "Diogenes" (really Percy Blake, the illegitimat

A historical novel by Baroness Orczy. Written soon after the birth of her son John, it is her first book as an author rather than translator and was a commercial failure. As in the Scarlet Pimpernel, the theme is international intrigue, but this time the setting is pre-World War One Europe and Russia rather than Revolutionary France

The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel, first published in 1922, is a book in the series about the Scarlet Pimpernel's adventures by Baroness Orczy. Again Orczy interweaves historic fact with fiction, this time through the real life figures of Th r sa Cabarrus, and Jean-Lambert Tallien; inserting the Scarlet Pimpernel as an instigator of the role Tallien played in the Thermidorian Reaction in July 1794. The story starts in Paris in April 1794, year II of the French Revolution. Theresia Cabarrus is a beautiful but shallow Spaniard who is betrothed to Citizen Tallien the popular Representative in the Convention and one of Robespierre's inner circle. She is credited with exercising a mellowing influence over Tallien, whom she met in Bordeaux but although she is engaged to be married to him, what little love she has appears to be lavished on another. Bertrand Moncrif is a good-looking but impulsive young man who appears determined to martyr himself in opposition to the revolutionary government. To this end, he has gathered the siblings of his long-term sweetheart, R gine de Serval, into his plan to denounce Robespierre at one of the Fraternal suppers. Despite warnings from R gine he insists on carrying through his plans which inevitably go awry and the wrath of the mob is soon turned towards the small group. After a timely intervention on the part of the Scarlet Pimpernel, using the guise of the coal heaver Rateau (who also appears in several short stories in The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel - The Cabaret de la Libert , Needs Must and A Battle of Wits), the de Servals are saved from a lynching while Moncrif lies unconscious and unseen under a table.

The Nest of the Sparrowhawk: A Romance of the XVIIth Century was written by Baroness Orczy, author of The Scarlet Pimpernel, in 1909. Set in puritan Kent in 1657, the story focuses on the intrigues of Sir Marmaduke de Chevasse "as stiff a Roundhead as ever upheld my Lord Protector and his Puritanic government", who is determined to secure the vast fortunes of his lovely ward, Lady Sue, for himself. Sue presents a girlish figure; she is young, alert and vigorous. The charm of her own youth and freshness even means she looks dainty and graceful in clothes that disfigure her elders. She enjoys the adulation which her appearance guarantees, laughing and chattering with the women and teasing the men. She does of course have plenty of admirers, including young Richard Lambert who worships her with protective reverence. Sir Marmaduke who has plans to woo and win Lady Sue disguised as the exiled French Prince of Orl ans, resents this faithful espionage and lays a plot to lure young Lambert to a gaming-house in London. Richard knows that gambling is an illicit pastime and that he is breaking the law, but is compelled to take his seat at the table by his employer. Richard is then duped into taking part in a brawl and is summarily arrested leaving the way open for Marmaduke to carry out his cowardly deception and he soon tricks Sue into marrying him. Sir Marmaduke persuades his widowed sister-in-law to abet him in this plot, in which she unwittingly disgraces one of her long lost sons and finds the other murdered by the villain. Though set in a completely different kind of background, the plot has some resemblance with the Sherlock Holmes story "A Case of Identity".

historical novel, "Leatherface - A Tale Of Old Flanders." In 1572, Spain rules over Flanders with an iron fist. The threat of the Inquisition and its tortures holds the people in terror of their conquerors. William, the Prince of Orange, has led an unsuccessful rebellion, and is now a fugitive hiding in the city of Ghent. His cunning and faithful watchdog, a mysterious man called Leatherface for the mask he wears, is the only reason Orange is still alive. Spanish Duke de Alva conceives a plan to capture Orange by arranging the marriage of his general's daughter Lenora with the son of Ghent's High Bailiff, thus introducing a spy into a house known to be in sympathy with Orange.

The Bronze Eagle Written by Baroness Orczy and first published in 1915, The Bronze Eagle: A Story of the Hundred Days, is a romance set in France following the period of the Revolution and the expulsion of the Bourbons. Its central plot lies in the intrigues of their followers and those of Napoleon Bonaparte. The novel was also published serially under the title of Waterloo. Crystal, the only daughter of the old, long-exiled haughty royalist, the Comte de Cambray, is on the eve of betrothal to de Marmont, (secretly an ardent Bonapartist). Bobby Clyffurde, the Englishman, who is in love with Crystal, confronts Victor de Marmont about why he is pretending to be a royalist. De Marmont replies that he has never led the Comte to suppose anything, the Comte has merely taken de Marmont's political convictions for granted. As if two potential suitors weren't enough, Crystal has yet another admirer, Maurice de St. Genis, whose impecunious state (her father sees him as a penniless, out-at-elbows, good for nothing) has precluded him from obtaining her hand in marriage. However at the moment of Crystal's betrothal to de Marmont, Maurice finally gets his revenge upon his rival. Once the guests have assembled for the ceremony, there is a disturbance from the end of the corridor and St. Genis enters the room, his rough clothes and muddy boots providing a contrast to the immaculate get-up of the Comte's guests. Looking flushed and clutching his cane he announces that he has only come to avert the awful catastrophe that is about to fall on the Comte and his family. At the young man's ominous words, M. le Comte goes pale and demands to know what catastrophe could be worse than twenty years of exile?

Baroness Emma Magdolna Roz lia M ria Jozefa Borb la "Emmuska" Orczy de Orci 23 September 1865 - 12 November 1947) was a Hungarian-born British novelist, playwright, and artist of noble origin. She is most known for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel, the alter ego of Sir Percy Blakeney, a wealthy English fop who transforms into a formidable swordsman and a quick-thinking escape artist, establishing the "hero with a secret identity" into popular culture. Opening in London's West End on 5 January 1905, The Scarlet Pimpernel became a favourite of British audiences. Some of her paintings were exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. During World War I, Orczy formed the Women of England's Active Service League, an unofficial organisation aimed at encouraging women to persuade men to volunteer for active service in the armed forces. Emmuska Orczy was born in Tarna rs, Heves County, Hungary, and was the daughter of composer Baron F lix Orczy de Orci (1835-1892) and Countess Emma Wass de Szentegyed et Cege (1839-1892). Her grandfather, Baron L szl Orczy (1787-1880) was a royal councillor, and also knight of the Sicilian order of Saint George, her grandmother was the Baroness Magdolna M ller (1811-1879). Her maternal grandparents were the Count S muel Wass de Szentegyed et Cege (1815-1879), member of the Hungarian parliament, and Roz lia Eperjessy de K rolyfej rv r (1814-1884)

The Scarlet Pimpernel By Baroness OrczyThe year is 1792. The French Revolution, driven to excess by its own triumph, has turned into a reign of terror. Daily, tumbrels bearing new victims to the guillotine roll over the cobbled streets of Paris.

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".

The Scarlet Pimpernel is the first novel in a series of historical fiction by Emma Orczy set during the Reign of Terror following the start of the French Revolution, first published in 1905. The novel was written after Orczy's stage play of the same title enjoyed a long run in London and popular success in earlier in 1905, after a first run in Nottingham in 1903. The Scarlet Pimpernel is the name of a chivalrous Englishman in the time of the Terrors in France, who, with his band of gentlemen, rescues aristocrats before they can be killed by the violent government in revolutionary France. He is known by his symbol, a simple flower, the scarlet pimpernel. He succeeds by masterful use of disguises and strict secrecy of the group's movements. His identity is secret to all but his men. Marguerite Blakeney, French wife of a wealthy English dandy, is approached by the new French envoy to England with a threat to her brother's life if she does not aid in his search for the Pimpernel. She aids him, and then discovers that the Pimpernel is also very dear to her. She sails to France to stop the envoy. Opening at the New Theatre in London's West End on 5 January 1905, the play became a favourite of British audiences, eventually playing more than 2,000 performances and becoming one of the most popular shows staged in Britain.