Audiobook · read by volunteers
Scarlet Pimpernel (Version 3, Dramatic Reading)
Baroness Emma Orczy (1865–1947)
Read by Luisa Hall, Timothy H. VanderWall, TriciaG, Miriam Esther Goldman (1991-2017), JimOCR, Bill Mosley, Algy Pug, Beth Thomas (1974-2020), Paige, Marissa Oakey · 31 chapters · 8 h 21
About the book
Paris, September 1792. The Revolution has turned bloody, the guillotine works day and night, and a mysterious Englishman known only as the Scarlet Pimpernel is smuggling aristocrats out of danger under the very noses of the revolutionaries. Who is he? That is the question that grips both Paris and London, as the French agent Chauvelin tracks his prey across the Channel, and as Marguerite, a brilliant French wife with a secret in her past, finds herself caught between her love for her fashionable English husband and her duty to her brother. Baroness Orczy’s swashbuckling novel is one of the great romantic adventures, full of disguises, daring rescues and sharp-edged wit. This is a dramatic reading, in which a large cast of LibriVox volunteers voices the thirty-one chapters like a play for the ear. Listen for the surprises and the daring.
Introduction
Baroness Emma Orczy was born in 1865 and died in 1947. She was a British novelist, playwright and artist of Hungarian origin, who moved to London as a girl and became one of the most successful popular writers of her day. She is most notable for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel, and some of her paintings were also exhibited at the Royal Academy.
The Scarlet Pimpernel began life as a stage play, first performed in 1903, and the novel followed a couple of years later. Its hero, a dashing Englishman who hides his daring behind a mask of idle foppery, is often seen as an ancestor of later secret-identity heroes. The story is set in the French Revolution, and it takes a markedly partisan view of those events, presenting the revolutionaries as villains and the aristocrats as victims. Modern readers may want to bear this in mind, since the history is far more complicated than the novel allows.
Chapter titles such as 'The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel', 'Doubt' and 'Suspense' give a flavour of its mounting tension. What lasts is the sheer storytelling drive: the cat-and-mouse chase, the secret society of loyal followers, and the doubts that trouble a marriage. The book has inspired many films, television series and stage musicals.
This is the third LibriVox version of the book, and a dramatic reading, meaning that different volunteers voice different characters. It has thirty-one chapters and runs for about eight and a half hours. If you like swashbuckling tales, historical adventure or old-fashioned romance, it is an excellent choice for a long listen.
Public domain
Baroness Emma Orczy died in 1947: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text