Sir Percy Blakeney (Scarlet Pimpernel) Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Scarlet Pimpernel | 1905 | Buy |
| I Will Repay | 1906 | Buy |
| The Elusive Pimpernel | 1908 | Buy |
| El Dorado | 1913 | Buy |
| The Laughing Cavalier | 1914 | Buy |
| Lord Tony’s Wife | 1916 | Buy |
| The League Of The Scarlet Pimpernel | 1919 | Buy |
| The First Sir Percy | 1921 | Buy |
| The Triumph Of The Scarlet Pimpernel | 1922 | Buy |
| Pimpernel and Rosemary | 1924 | Buy |
| Sir Percy Hits Back | 1927 | Buy |
| The Adventures Of The Scarlet Pimpernel | 1929 | Buy |
| In the Rue Monge | 1931 | Buy |
| A Child of the Revolution | 1932 | Buy |
| The Way Of The Scarlet Pimpernel | 1933 | Buy |
| The Scarlet Pimpernel Looks at the World | 1933 | Buy |
| Sir Percy Leads The Band | 1936 | Buy |
| Mam’zelle Guillotine | 1940 | Buy |
Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel, is one of the earliest examples of the secret identity hero in popular fiction. Created by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, Percy appears to be a foolish English aristocrat but secretly leads a band of rescuers who smuggle condemned French nobles out of Paris during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. The first novel, The Scarlet Pimpernel, was published in 1905 and became a massive popular success.
Orczy wrote eighteen Scarlet Pimpernel books between 1905 and 1940, following Sir Percy and his League through various adventures set against the backdrop of revolutionary France. The series includes direct sequels, prequels like The First Sir Percy and The Laughing Cavalier (which follows an ancestor), and collections of shorter adventures. The books established many of the conventions that later masked hero stories, including Zorro and Batman, would build upon.
The Scarlet Pimpernel has been adapted for stage, film, and television many times since Orczy first wrote the character for a London play in 1903. The novels remain in print and are read both as historical adventure fiction and as early examples of the genre conventions they helped create.