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THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
Baroness Orczy
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
This eBook edition published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018
Life & Times section © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
Cover by E-Digital Design
Silvia Crompton asserts her moral rights as author of the Life & Times section
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from
Collins English Dictionary
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780008278762
Ebook Edition © 2018 ISBN: 9780008280192
Version: 2018-03-01
Contents
Copyright
History of William Collins
Life & Times
Chapter I: Paris: September, 1792
Chapter II: Dover: “The Fisherman’s Rest”
Chapter III: The Refugees
Chapter IV: The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel
Chapter V: Marguerite
Chapter VI: An Exquisite Of ’92
Chapter VII: The Secret Orchard
Chapter VIII: The Accredited Agent
Chapter IX: The Outrage
Chapter X: In the Opera Box
Chapter XI: Lord Grenville’s Ball
Chapter XII: The Scrap of Paper
Chapter XIII: Either – Or?
Chapter XIV: One O’Clock Precisely!
Chapter XV: Doubt
Chapter XVI: Richmond
Chapter XVII: Farewell
Chapter XVIII: The Mysterious Device
Chapter XIX: The Scarlet Pimpernel
Chapter XX: The Friend
Chapter XXI: Suspense
Chapter XXII: Calais
Chapter XXIII: Hope
Chapter XXIV: The Death-Trap
Chapter XXV: The Eagle and the Fox
Chapter XXVI: The Jew
Chapter XXVII: On the Track
Chapter XXVIII: The Père Blanchard’s Hut
Chapter XXIX: Trapped
Chapter XXX: The Schooner
Chapter XXXI: The Escape
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases
About the Publisher
In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books, and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William co-published in 1825, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.
Soon after, William published the first Collins novel; however, it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed, and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.
Aged 30, William’s son, William II, took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly ‘Victorian’ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and The Pilgrim’s Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time.
A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases, and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.
In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of ‘books for the millions’ was developed, although the phrase wasn’t coined until 1907. Affordable editions of classical literature were published, and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everyman’s Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel, and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time, and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.
HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics, and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition – publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible, and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.
The Scarlet Pimpernel, the enigmatic alter ego of upper-class fop Sir Percy Blakeney, is a hero who’s as English as can be: discreet, chivalrous and fiercely