Baroness Orczy
1865–1947 · Hungarian-born British novelist and playwright, creator of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Emma Orczy was born in 1865 in Tarnaörs, Hungary, the daughter of Baron Felix Orczy, a composer and landowner. Her family left Hungary when she was a child, living in Budapest, Brussels and Paris before settling in London in 1880. She studied art and exhibited paintings, and married the illustrator Montague Barstow. She began writing detective stories and then The Scarlet Pimpernel, about Sir Percy Blakeney, an English aristocrat who pretends to be a foolish dandy while secretly rescuing French nobles from the guillotine during the Reign of Terror. It was staged as a play in London in 1903 before the novel was published in 1905, and both were great successes. She wrote many sequels about the Pimpernel and his League, as well as mystery stories featuring the Old Man in the Corner and Lady Molly of Scotland Yard. She lived for many years in Monte Carlo and died in Henley-on-Thames in 1947.
Baroness Orczy is also an author in the library: author page and works.
Faith: Faith not well documented. Source: Wikipedia
Key dates
- 1865 Born in Tarnaörs, Hungary
- 1880 Family settles in London
- 1903 The Scarlet Pimpernel staged in London
- 1905 The Scarlet Pimpernel published
- 1947 Dies in Henley-on-Thames
Fun facts
- Her play The Scarlet Pimpernel opened in London's West End on 5 January 1905 and became a favourite of British audiences. (Source: Baroness Orczy (Wikipedia))
Read about them
Grades 6–8
- The Scarlet Pimpernel · In the library
More lives
Marguerite de Angeli · Richard and Florence Atwater · Mariano Azuela · Samuel Beckett · W. E. B. Du Bois · Bertolt Brecht