Customer Reviews

The Scarlet Pimpernel

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I really enjoyed this book, and I am defiantly going to read the rest of them! This is the first of many Pimpernel stories, and it is very good. It has lovable character, wonderful twists, and a heartbreaking Love story. My mother and I both read it and Loved it!! I totally recommend it for anyone of any age I was 15 when I read it a year ago, and My mother is in her 40's, and We both loved it!!

NOW THERE IS ONE THING I SHOULD WARN YOU ABOUT... The first few chapters are a little slow and you may be tempted to stop reading, but KEEP WITH IT!!!! It is so worth it!!!!!

The Scarlet Pimpernel is set during the French Reign of Terror, when aristocrats and royalists were being beheaded in the name of "liberty, freedom, and brotherhood". The author creates The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, a band of Englishmen committed to helping aristocrats escape to England, and keep their heads. The head of this band of Englishmen is, of course, called by the code name The Scarlet Pimpernel. His identity is secret to all, even those he helps escape.

This sets the scene for a "Three Musketeers" style swashbuckling adventure story. It is fun and exciting, full of suspense that lasts until the very end. There is a nice love story woven quite naturally into the fabric of the plot, that manages to add to the plot without being syrupy. The story also includes some thoughtful moments that excute simply without bogging down the story in the least. Overall, a very enjoyable novel. It treads lightly on the moral/ethical issues surrounding the French Revolution, and deals mostly with an adventuresome story. Those looking for a more 'serious' fictional work of the French Revolution may prefer A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

I always think its such a shame that this book isn't better known and more widely read. It's probably one of the best romance/adventure stories I've ever read. The character of Sir Percy is so wonderful (his daring and audacity), and there are moments when you don't want to put the book down because you MUST know what will happen next. I've read the book over and over, and I still enjoy it just as much as I did the first time I read it. I highly recommend this book!

The Scarlet Pimpernel is an amazing and well-written novel. It is brimming with action, suspense, romance and it is all crammed into a 200-page book. In the beginning, it may seem like a difficult read because the author is developing the characters and describing the setting, but once the plot begins in earnest, it is hard to put down.
The story revolves around the elusive character, the Scarlet Pimpernel. Although his true identity is unknown, he is said to have rescued many French aristocrats from blade of the guillotine in France, to a safe haven in England. A French revolutionary official known as Chauvelin has been searching for the Scarlet Pimpernel for many years. He knows that the Scarlet Pimpernel is in the England, so he seeks the help of a prominent figure in England's society named Marguerite. Chauvelin claims to have the evidence to send her brother, Armand, to the guillotine, unless she finds the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Throughout the book, she finds clues and gives them to Chauvelin, until they finally discover the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel. He leaves for France to catch the Scarlet Pimpernel in the act of saving a family of aristocrats. Marguerite finds that her brother is safe, but the Scarlet Pimpernel turns out to be someone who she truly cares for. She makes the dangerous journey France to find the Scarlet Pimpernel before Chauvelin does.
You'll have to read the end yourself; the story gets better with many twists and turns and lots of both action and romance. This is truly a book that both boys and girls would like.

This kid, who'll be 13 tomorrow, was forced to read this book for a literature circle in 8th grade Honors English. I picked it because it seemed to be the best selection out of the four others. Anyway, I read it and thought that it was the best classic book that I've read so far.

This book had both suspense and romance as the story of the main characters get more interesting. In the first of the book, the French Revolution is at hand, and the French are killing the "aristos." The gilloutine was at work all day killing the relatives of the nobles who ruled long ago. Some reports were coming in of arisocrat families escaping with a band of English men. These men were, of course, in the leauge of the Scarlet Pimpernel. As the gaurd at the West Barracade tells of the Scarlet Pimpernel who recently saves everyone, he get hoodwinked himself. Soon the Comtesse and her children come to the Fisherman's Inn, a great setting for the following events. The Comtesse comes face-to-face with Margurite and soon exits the room. Sir Percy is with his wife, Margurite, so that she could say goodbye to her brother, Armand. The two part, and then she gets confronted by an old friend from France who asks her to find out who the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel is. She accepts, and then the story goes on from there...

For Christmas, I'm going to buy my sister, who's only ten, this book. It's exciting allmost all the way through, and even I liked it. I reccommend it to anyone who likes Harry Potter books.

I hate, really hate giving a poor rating to a book that so many others have loved, but it must be done. Reading the reviews of the Scarlet Pimpernel, one expects Erol Flynn in print, with clever banter exchanged during swordfights, daring escapes, diabolical plotting by the villains. In the event, we get maybe one out of three.

It's not that the novel is terribly written; there are some comlaints to be had there, but ultimately the book is too short for the complaints to matter. In fact, the novel starts out beautifully, with a French official bragging about how the Scarlet Pimpernel will never get past *him*, only to be duped himself. But after that first chapter it's Dullsville, with only an occasional spark of excitement. It's hard to get excited about a rich nobleman saving other rich noblemen, for one thing. For another, the gallant adventure promised is simply missing completely. If you want daring and dashing adventure, read The Three Musketeers - it's incredibly long, but you'll get much more satisfaction per page than you will here.

Too many of my amazon friends have given up or strongly hinted at the ending to this classic tale. This reviewer will try to avoid that trap. Set in England at the time of the French Revolution, "The Scarlet Pimpernel" features a brave Englishman who rescues French nobility from a certain date with the guillotine. Back home, the Brit is not taken seriously, usually described as "foppish". Across the Channel in France, he is the bravest guy around, carrying out daring rescues in a variety of disguises. Oh, those disguises! And that is all this reviewer will divulge! Those whose curiosity is whetted will just have to buy SP and read it. Though a bit florid, SP is fast reading, exciting and thoroughly enjoyable! A word on the movie version(s) seems required: The standard is the 1934 release with Leslie Howard as the SP, Merle Oberon as his wife, Lady Blakeley, and (in the "Prisoner of Zenda" tradition), Raymond Massey as the French agent, Chauvelin. There is a bad guy if ever there was one! The 1934 movie does NOT closely follow the book. Marguerite, Lady B, is vastly more prominent in print. That settled, enjoy SP in print or video. As is usually the case, the book wins but both are excellent entertainment in their own right. Isn't it poetic that Mr. Howard met his tragic real life demise as a British secret agent in WW2? Wouldn't Melanie have been proud of him?

This book is just plain fun to read. No profound insight into humanity or burning indictment against someone or something - this is just great, fast paced fun. It reminded me of the Sherlock Holmes adventures or a modern suspense movie.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is an Englishman who leads a group saving the lives of French Aristocrats who are being systematically hunted down and killed in a French revolution. His identity is secret and he is really putting egg on the face of the revolutionaries so they attempt to find him through the aid of the expatriot Marguerite St. Just, now Lady Blakeney and the head of society in England. The plot comes into full throttle when she puts them on the trail of the Pimpernel only to discover afterwards the identity of the Pimpernel herself. The race is on. Will they find and kill the Pimpernel before she can find and save him?

This review is directed primarily to ladies.

This is a great book, girls! It starts out real gory, but hang in there (no pun intended), it will turn into an incredible romance.

About 20 years ago, a college friend urged me to read the Scarlet Pimpernel. I read the first few pages and was so horrified by the bloodshed that I did not read further. That was a big mistake.

After I graduated, I spotted the unabridged book in a CHILDREN's section of a library. What!? I checked it out and after I read past the first chapter or two, the story was so wonderful that I've been recommending it ever since.

The first few gory pages set the scene. After you get through that the story develops into an amazing romance with lots of adventure.

Warning: if you expect this book to end like the movie with Jane Seymour in it, it doesn't. The movie ending is actually the ending of one of the Scarlet Pimpernel sequels.

This book has an OK ending, but if you want to read the dramatic ending that the movie has, you will also have to read one of the sequels, too--only I don't remember exactly which one it was.

From what I remember the Baroness's husband helped her write the story and you can see his hand in it, I think, which really makes a great story. There are elements in it that are really action-packed and then there are the tender scenes. All nicely done, not too syrupy.

This is a great book. Go for it. Read it, then the sequels. Also, I liked both versions of the movie. The old black and white with Leslie Howard and then the more modern version with Jane Seymore.

Torn between love for her brother and her husband, Lake Blakeney is tortured by doubt and guilt during the autumn of 1792--a turbulent year for France and her English sympathizers. Members of the hated French nobility (sacres aristos!) are ruthlessly hunted down, incarcerated, then executed to the jeers of the abused masses--grisly fodder for Madame Guillotine. Regardless of the justice or injustice of their fate, readers are treated to a gripping tale of vicious schemes, clever counterplots, and international intrigue. A band of 19 English aristocrats pledge life and loyalty to their audacious and ingenious leader, known cryptically by his signature flower: the Scarlet Pimpernel. This band of disguised heroes undertakes to rescue the doomed French nobility from the insatiable jaws of the Reign of Terror.

Hounded by foxlike Chauvelin, the merciless agent for the bloodthirsty Republic, the Scarlet Pimpernel is walking into a fiendish trap--unwittingly set in motion by his own, unsuspecting wife, who does not realize his true personoa behind his foppish mask. The distraught woman, a former actress at the Comedie Francaise, is forced to make intolerable choices by her implacable foe who stalks her happiness, tirelessly pursuing the
shadowy trail of the daring Pimpernel. How much emotional torture can a woman endure in such a short time? Once she tumbles onto the truth about her sham marriage, she realizes that the heart she scorned is truly a prize worth earning--even dying for! Romance, lust for political power, and duels of wit mark this fast-paced novel of intrigue set in the French Revolution on both shores of the Channel. This is a spy swashbuckler without the usual swordplay; instead, readers enjoy a lightning exchange of rapier wits, while two hearts struggle to deny their true passion.