The Scarlet Pimpernel

In 1792, at the height of the Terror in revolutionary Paris, a mysterious Englishman known only by his sign, a small red flower called the scarlet pimpernel, keeps smuggling condemned aristocrats out of France under the noses of the guards. In London, the beautiful Marguerite Blakeney is married to Sir Percy, the richest and silliest fop in society, and she is blackmailed by a French agent into helping him unmask the Pimpernel.

Baroness Emmuska Orczy (1865–1947), born in Hungary and raised in London, first wrote the story as a play in 1903 and then as a novel in 1905. Sir Percy, the hero who hides behind a foolish public face, became the model for Zorro and many later masked heroes. It is fast, romantic and pure entertainment.