Baroness Emma Orczy

The native form of this personal name is orczi báró Orczy Emma. This article uses the Western name order.

Baroness Emma Orczy
Portrait of Baroness Emma Orczy by Bassano
Born	23 September 1865 (1865-09-23) Tarnaörs, Heves County, Hungary
Died	12 November 1947 (1947-11-13) Henley-on-Thames, UK
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	Hungarian, British
Genres	Historical fiction, mystery fiction and adventure romances
Notable work(s)	The Scarlet Pimpernel
Spouse(s)	Montagu Barstow
Children	John Montague Orczy-Barstow (pen name John Blakeney)

Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi ( /ˈɔrtsiː/; 23 September 1865 – 12 November 1947) was a British novelist, playwright and artist of Hungarian noble origin. She was most notable for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel. Some of her paintings were exhibited at the Royal Academy in London.

Early life

Emmuska Orczy was born in Tarnaörs, Heves County, Hungary, and was the daughter of composer Baron Felix Orczy de Orczi and Countess Emma Wass von Szentegyed und Czege. Her parents left Hungary in 1868, fearful of the threat of a peasant revolution. They lived in Budapest, Brussels, and Paris (where Emma studied music without success). Finally, in 1880, the family moved to London where they lodged with their countryman Francis Pichler at 162 Great Portland Street. Orczy attended West London School of Art and then Heatherley's School of Fine Art.

Although not destined to be a painter, it was at art school that she met a young illustrator named Montague MacLean Barstow, the son of an English clergyman; they married in 1894. It was the start of a joyful and happy marriage "for close on half a century one of perfect happiness and understanding of perfect friendship and communion of thought."^[1]

Writing career

They had very little money, and Orczy started to work with her husband as a translator and an illustrator to supplement his low earnings. John Montague Orczy-Barstow, their only child, was born on 25 February 1899. She started writing soon after his birth but her first novel, The Emperor's Candlesticks (1899), was a failure. She did, however, find a small following with a series of detective stories in the Royal Magazine. Her next novel, In Mary's Reign (1901) did better.

In 1903, she and her husband wrote a play based on one of her short stories about an English aristocrat, Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., who rescued French aristocrats from the French Revolution: The Scarlet Pimpernel. She submitted her novelization of the story under the same title to 12 publishers. While she was waiting for the decisions of these publishers, Fred Terry and Julia Neilson accepted the play for production in the West End. Initially, it drew small audiences, but the play ran four years in London, broke many stage records, was translated and produced in other countries, and underwent several revivals. This theatrical success generated huge sales for the novel.

She went on to write over a dozen sequels featuring Sir Percy Blakeney, his family, and the other members of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, of which the first, I Will Repay (1906), was the most popular. The last Pimpernel book, Mam'zelle Guillotine, was published in 1940. None of her three subsequent plays matched the success of The Scarlet Pimpernel. She also wrote popular mystery fiction and many adventure romances. Her Lady Molly of Scotland Yard was an early example of a female detective as the main character. Other popular detective stories featured The Old Man In the Corner, a sleuth who chiefly used logic to solve crimes.

Orczy's novels were racy, mannered melodramas and she favored historical fiction. In The Nest of the Sparrowhawk (1909), for example, a malicious guardian in Puritan Kent tricks his beautiful, wealthy, young ward into marrying him by disguising himself as an exiled French prince. He persuades his widowed sister-in-law to abet him in this plot, in which she unwittingly disgraces one of her long lost sons and finds the other murdered by the villain. Even though this novel had no link to The Scarlet Pimpernel other than its shared authorship, the publisher advertised it as part of 'The Scarlet Pimpernel Series'.

Later life

Her work was so successful that she was able to buy an estate in Monte Carlo.

During the First World War, Baroness Orczy formed the Women of England's Active Service League, an unofficial organisation aimed at the recruitment of female volunteers for active service. Her aim was to enlist 100,000 women who would pledge "to persuade every man I know to offer his service to his country". Some 20,000 women joined her organisation.^[2] See also White feather - A symbol of cowardice.

She died in Henley-on-Thames on 12 November 1947.

Descendants

Her son, John Montague Orczy-Barstow, was a writer under the name John Blakeney, the surname taken from that of his mother's most famous fictional character.

Her grandson, Michael Felix Orczy-Barstow, was a British aviator and an early computer systems analyst. He died in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Her granddaughter, Magdalena Yvonne Orczy-Barstow, was a WREN during WWII and married William Edwin Anderson. She migrated to Christchurch, New Zealand. She passed away in 2002. They had three children, Jill Mary Irene, living in Christchurch, twin boys, Robert Michael Charles, Christchurch and Peter Edwin John currently living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Name pronunciation

Asked how to say her name, Orczy told The Literary Digest "or-tsey". Emmuska – a diminutive meaning "little Emma" – (accent on the first syllable—the s equivalent to our sh), thus, 'em-moosh-ka." (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)

Works

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Translations

• Old Hungarian Fairy Tales (1895) translator with Montague Barstow
• The Enchanted Cat (1895) translator with Montague Barstow
• Fairyland's Beauty (1895) translator with Montague Barstow
• Uletka and the White Lizard (1895) translator with Montague Barstow

Plays

• The Scarlet Pimpernel (1903)
• The Sin of William Jackson (1906)
• Beau Brocade (1908)
• The Duke's Wager (1911)
• The Legion of Honour (1918), adapted from A Sheaf of Bluebells

Short story collections

• The Case of Miss Elliot (1905)
• The Old Man in the Corner (1909)
• Lady Molly of Scotland Yard (1910)
• The Man in Grey (1918)
• The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1919)
• Castles in the Air (1921)
• Unravelled Knots (1926)
• Skin o' My Tooth (1928)
• Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1929)

Novels

• The Emperor's Candlesticks (1899)
• In Mary's Reign (1901) later The Tangled Skein (1907)
• The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905)
• By the Gods Beloved (1905) later released in the US as The Gates of Kamt (1907)
• I Will Repay (1906)
• A Son of the People (1906)
• Beau Brocade (1907)
• The Elusive Pimpernel (1908)
• The Nest of the Sparrowhawk (1909)
• Petticoat Government (1910)
• A True Woman (1911)
• The Traitor (1912)
• The Good Patriots (1912)
• Fire in Stubble (1912)
• Meadowsweet (1912)
• Eldorado (1913)
• Unto Cæsar (1914)
• The Laughing Cavalier (1914)
• A Bride of the Plains (1915)
• The Bronze Eagle (1915)
• Leatherface (1916)
• Lord Tony's Wife (1917)
• A Sheaf of Bluebells (1917)
• Flower o' the Lily (1918)
• His Majesty's Well-beloved (1919)
• The First Sir Percy (1921)
• The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1922)
• Nicolette: A Tale of Old Provence (1922)
• The Honourable Jim (1924)
• Pimpernel and Rosemary (1924)
• Les Beaux et les Dandys de Grand Siècles en Angleterre (1924)
• The Miser of Maida Vale (1925)
• A Question of Temptation (1925)
• The Celestial City (1926)
• Sir Percy Hits Back (1927)
• Blue Eyes and Grey (1929)
• Marivosa (1930)
• In the Rue Monge (1931)
• A Joyous Adventure (1932)
• A Child of the Revolution (1932)
• The Scarlet Pimpernel Looks at the World (1933)
• The Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1933)
• A Spy of Napoleon (1934)
• The Uncrowned King (1935)
• The Turbulent Duchess (1935)
• Sir Percy Leads the Band (1936)
• The Divine Folly (1937)
• No Greater Love (1938)
• Mam'zelle Guillotine (1940)
• Pride of Race (1942)
• The Will-O'-The-Wisp (1947)

Omnibus editions

• The Scarlet Pimpernel etc. (1930) collection of four novels
• The Gallant Pimpernel (1939) collection of four novels
• The Scarlet Pimpernel Omnibus (1957) collection of four novels

Non-fiction

• Links in the Chain of Life (autobiography, 1947)

See also

Novels portal

• Alexandre Dumas, père
• H. Rider Haggard
• Karl May
• Rafael Sabatini
• Emilio Salgari
• Lawrence Schoonover
• Samuel Shellabarger
• Jules Verne
• Frank Yerby

Notes

1. ^ Orczy, Emmuska. Links in the Chain of Life (Chapter 8) London: Hutchinson, 1947. Print.
2. ^ Keep the Home Fires Burning, Propaganda in the First World War, by Cate Haste, Allen Lane, 1977

References

• 'Obituary—Baroness ORCZY: "The Scarlet Pimpernel"', The Times, November 13, 1947.

External links

• Works by Baroness Orczy at Blackmask
• Works by Baroness Orczy at Blakeney Manor
• Works by Baroness Orczy at Project Gutenberg
• Literary agent

See also: Orczy

Persondata
Name	Orczy, Emma
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	23 September 1865
Place of birth	Tarnaörs, Heves County, Hungary
Date of death	12 November 1947
Place of death	Henley-on-Thames, UK