Best 1906 Adventures (5)
By:
October 26, 2016
One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1906 adventure novels. Happy 110th anniversary!
Baroness Orzcy’s Scarlet Pimpernel novel I Will Repay.
The French Revolution is in full swing, and Juliette Marny and Citizen Paul Déroulède — a lawyer considered harmless to the Revolution — are in love. However, Juliette once promised her aristocrat father that she would avenge her brother’s accidental death — in a duel — at the hands of Déroulède. Juliette now realizes that vengeance belongs to God… however, she has set into motion a plot that will end with Déroulède facing the guillotine! Déroulède, meanwhile, is plotting to help rescue France’s Queen Marie Antoinette. Only Déroulède’s friend, Sir Percy Blakeney, the guillotine-victim-rescuing Scarlet Pimpernel, can help them now. Readers agree that this is the silliest and most over-written Scarlet Pimpernel installment. However, if you like suspense, Orzcy never fails to deliver. Also, some readers admire Blakeney’s message about true love: “To love is to feel one being in the world at one with us, our equal in sin as well as in virtue.”
Fun fact: The second Pimpernel book written, but chronologically third — after Sir Percy Leads the Band and before The Elusive Pimpernel. The title is from Romans 12:19: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
Let me know if I’ve missed any 1906 adventures that you particularly admire.