Baroness Orczy

Baroness Orczy was born in Hungary in 1865, the daughter of Baron Felix Orczy, a landed aristocrat and well-known composer and conductor.

She moved with her parents from Budapest to Brussels and then Paris, where she was educated. Orczy also studied art in London and exhibited work at the Royal Academy. Later she Montagu Barstow and together they worked as illustrators and jointly published an edition of Hungarian folk tales.

Fame came in 1905 with the publication of The Scarlet Pimpernel, which was originally a play co-written with her husband. Its background of Revolution in France and swashbuckling hero, 'Sir Percy Blakeney', was to prove immensely popular. Sequels followed and many years later film and TV versions are enduringly popular, with new productions from time to time. However, Orczy also also wrote detective stories which have a following today amongst those intersted in the genre.

She died in 1947.