Baroness Orczy

Biography

Emma Magdalena Rosalia Maria Josefa Barbara Orczy (1865-1947) — known as Baroness Orczy — was born in Hungary to an aristocratic family that fled to Paris and then London during a peasant uprising against her father's agricultural reforms. This biographical fact is the seed of The Scarlet Pimpernel: a noble family driven out of their country by revolutionary violence. She wrote the novel after her play failed to find a producer, turning it into a book almost as an afterthought. It was rejected by twelve publishers before finding one. Within two years of publication it was the bestselling novel in England.

Baroness Orczy at a glance