Emma Orczy

The Bronze Eagle Emma Orczy

The intrigues of the royalist and those of the adepts of Napoleon Bonaparte. Story set during the French Revolution. The perfect calm of an early spring dawn lies over headland and sea hardly a ripple stirs the blue cheek of the bay. The softness of departing night lies upon the bosom of the Mediterranean like the dew upon the heart of a flower. Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi was a Hungarian-born British novelist, playwright and artist of noble origin. She is most known for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel. In 1903, Orczy and her husband wrote a play based on one of her short stories about an English aristocrat, Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., who rescued French aristocrats from the French Revolution: The Scarlet Pimpernel. The play was accepted for production in the West End and though initially drew only small audiences, it ran four years, broke many stage records, was translated and produced in other countries, and underwent several revivals. This theatrical success generated huge sales for the novel and Orczy went on to write over a dozen sequels. Orczy's novels were racy, mannered melodramas and she favored historical fiction.