THE FOLIO SOCIETY

We are at the height of the French Revolution, les aristos are being denounced and summarily guillotined in their hundreds. But more and more are rescued, in the most melodramatic circumstances, by a small team of English gentlemen, led by a shadowy and romantic master of disguise - the Scarlet Pimpernel. In this exciting adventure story, the sinister Monsieur Chauvelin doggedly pursues 'that demmed elusive Pimpernel', from the fishermen's taverns of the Kent coast to the state ballrooms, with the assistance of the beautiful Marguerite Blakeney, French émigrée and queen of Society. But why is she helping the agents of the Republic, while she publicly decries their methods? She cannot confide her secrets even to her amiably dull-witted husband, Sir Percy, she is the model of uninterested affability - or is he?