The Scarlet Pimpernel

Emmuska Orczy

Baroness Emmuska Orczy (1865-1947) was Hungarian-born royalty but lived most of her life in London. Baron Felix Orczy, a noted composer and conductor, was her father. She received a convent education in Paris and Brussels and moved with her family to London, where she studied Art and met her future husband - Montague Barstow - who she would marry in 1894 and collaborate with on the theatrical original of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" in 1903. Her lack of success in the artistic field led her to start writing and found it surprisingly easy to get her early crime stories published. Orczy and Barstow moved to Monte Carlo, where the latter died in 1943, leaving his wife to write her autobiography, which was published a matter of weeks before her death.