Paris, 1792.
Amid the chaos and confusion of revolutionary Paris, one man stands alone against terror and tyranny.
That man is The Scarlet Pimpernel.
I read the original novel after seeing the musical, and it doesn’t take very long to see that they took quite a few liberties with the story in the musical. 🙂 The Leslie Howard movie version is much closer to the book than the musical is. However, I did enjoy it a lot…it’s not very long and it’s interesting enough to make it hard to put down…I read it in one sitting! 🙂
The story begins after Percy and Marguerite have been married for quite some time, and the Scarlet Pimpernel and his league have already been active for almost as long. The main character of the book is Marguerite…Chauvelin is described in some detail as well, but Percy is mostly presented to us only as others would see him.
I find that the “betrayal” of St. Cyr by Marguerite is far more damning in the book and movie than in the musical. It seems she did it only out of spite…for herself in the movie and for Armand in the book. I also wonder why the decision was made in the musical to make Armand her younger brother…in the book he’s 8 years older!
The final scene of the book (if you can call it that…it goes on for about 100 pages!) is very good, and I have to say I didn’t suspect Percy’s disguise in that caper up to the very end! I thought the ending was rather abrupt, but I hope to read some more of the sequels soon to see how she continued the story.