Adventure classics -- A fugitive baroness conjures romance

The Scarlet Pimpernel

by Baroness Emma Orczy

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Fearing revolution, a noble family flees their homeland for England. Two young people, one an aristocrat, the other plebeian, find true love. A beautiful, quick-witted woman finds true love in the arms of her English husband. Is it the plot Emma Bristow (born Baroness Orczy) fashioned for her 1905 romantic thriller, The Scarlet Pimpernel? Or is it the story of her own life?

In the story, lovely, spirited young foreigner is French actress (and poor commoner) Marguerite St. Just. The devoted husband who brings her wealth and fame is the titled Sir Percy Blakeney. Together, they embark on a career of shared adventure. Life, of course, often has more twists than fiction. And in life, it was the impoverished baroness Emma who married the almost equally-strapped for cash commoner Montagu Barstow. But together, they embarked on a life, if not of adventure, at least of shared writing, that in the end made them famous and rich.

As the calendar here in the northern hemisphere draws near to spring (although there’s snow on the ground as I write this), I’m ready to set aside January and February’s tragic tales for something more frivolous, something sweet and romantic with, dare I hope, a happy ending. Something like The Scarlet Pimpernel. (Was it because English wasn’t Orczy’s native language that she chose a title whose sound, to American ears at least, is almost irresistibly comic?)

In the story, during the height of the French Revolution, wealthy English baronet Sir Percy Blakeney has fallen madly in love with, and married, beautiful French actress Marguerite St. Just. The day after their marriage, Percy learns that information passed on by Marguerite’ has brought about the death of an entire aristocratic French family. She is guilty of nothing worse than ill-considered gossip, but her own pride keeps her from excusing herself to Percy. Percy in turn is mortified by what seems to be his wife’s betrayal of his code of honor.

In fact, more than wounded pride is at the heart of Percy’s estrangement from Marguerite. Unknown to her, he and a band of friends have formed The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, named for a pretty little English wildflower, to rescue condemned nobles from the clutches of Madame Guillotine.

Now he finds himself married to a woman who has betrayed other aristocrats to their deaths. Will she also betray him?

Early in her marriage to Montagu Bristow, Hungarian émigré Emma had worked as a translator to help with the family finances. By 1903, having gained a small following of fans, she and her husband wrote a play, The Scarlet Pimpernel, based on one of her short story characters. Critics called the play old-fashioned (it is strongly reminiscent of the previous decade’s The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hopkins), but it was popular enough for Emma to market a book-length version.
The original dramatic form gave Pimpernel the fast-paced action and dialogue that have made it a natural for uncounted adaptations, including the 1934 film version starring Leslie Howard, whose poster is today’s illustration.

After Pimpernel, Howard would play many more romantic parts, in life and in art. But that’s a story for another post.

(Next Friday, Adventure classics continues a March of thrills and suspense with The Scarlet Pimpernel.)

Adventure classics -- Royal tragedies, transformed

The Prisoner of Zenda

by Anthony Hope

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She was tall, slim, beautiful, and royal. She suffered from eating disorders and a deteriorating marriage. And she died in an incident of bizarre violence.

I’m writing, not about Diana, Princess of Wales, but her nineteenth century precursor as a celebrity royal, Empress Elisabeth of Austria -- my pick for inspiring the character of Princess Flavia in Anthony Hope’s 1894 adventure story, The Prisoner of Zenda.

The unhappy empress’s family, in fact, ran a veritable sideline in inspiring improbably romantic tales. There was Elisabeth’s eccentric and extravagant cousin, Ludwig II of Bavaria, who died mysteriously after being deposed from his throne. Any consideration of the character of “Mad King Ludwig” makes him an obvious forerunner for the impetuous king of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story, “A Scandal in Bohemia.”

Empress Elisabeth’s only son, Crown Prince Rudolf, made international headlines in 1889 by dying in a murder-suicide pact with lover Baroness Mary Vetsera. The incident would give rise to numerous film adaptations, including a reference in the 2006 movie, The Illusionist.

Elisabeth herself died at the hands of an assassin in 1898, as would her husband’s nephew, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in 1914, precipitating the First World War.

Fortunately, none of these shadows darken the operetta-like story by English barrister Hope (actually Anthony Hope Hawkins), itself the inspiration for numerous plays and movies.

In The Prisoner of Zenda, Hope conjures the fictional kingdom of Ruritania, whose new ruler bears an uncanny resemblance to his distant cousin, Englishman Rudolf Rassendyll. 

When Rassendyll visits Ruritania on the occasion of the new king’s coronation, the cousins meet delightedly, only to be parted by the intrigue of the king’s evil half-brother. In the course of the story, Rassendyll finds himself wooing his cousin’s bride to be, Princess Flavia. And wondering whether life as a king -- and as lovely Flavia’s husband -- wouldn’t suit him better than England.

Along the way, Hope also created charismatic villain, Rupert Hentzau, played in the movies by actors as dashing as the lead. A publicity still of Ramon Novarro as Hentzau, from the 1922 movie adaptation, illustrates this post.

So popular was The Prisoner of Zenda that Hope (or Hawkins) gave up his legal career to write full time. He wrote more than thirty more novels, had a large following during his lifetime, and received a knighthood for his propaganda work during the First World War. Nothing else he did, however, became him as well as Zenda.

(Next Friday -- Adventure classics begins a month of mysterious adventures with a look at Arthur Conan Doyle’s breakout Sherlock Holmes story, The Sign of the Four.)