The Scarlet Pimpernel

First published in 1905, this novel is set in 1792, when French aristocrats flee the Terror. In England, Lady Blakeney, a French actress married to the apparently foppish Sir Percy, is pressed by the agent Chauvelin to help trap the Scarlet Pimpernel, the disguised leader of a league that smuggles condemned nobles out of Paris. The action moves between a Dover inn, London drawing rooms, and the French coast. Disguise, signals, and a strained marriage carry the plot. The book is an adventure of double identity and rescue, not a history of the Revolution.

Bound in cream vegetable parchment with a design in colour by Weller. Red endleaves. Red slipcase.