The first and most successful in the Baroness's series of books that feature Per
cy Blakeney, who leads a double life as an English fop and a swashbuckling rescu
er of aristocrats, "The Scarlet Pimpernel" was the blueprint for what became kno
wn as the masked-avenger genre. As Anne Perry writes in her Introduction, the no
vel "has almost reached its first centenary, and it is as vivid and appealing as
ever because the plotting is perfect. It is a classic example of how to constru
ct, pace, and conclude a plot. . . . To rise on the crest of laughter without ca
psizing, to survive being written, rewritten, and reinterpreted by each generati
on, is the mark of a plot that is timeless and universal, even though it happens
to be set in England and France of 1792."
