The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel

Eleven exploits of the League: a rescue from the Temple, a disguise as a coalheaver, a wager, a trap set by Chauvelin that very nearly closes. Orczy arrived in London from Hungary at fifteen with no English, and a dozen publishers rejected the first Pimpernel before the stage version made it a phenomenon. These short pieces are the machine running at its lightest, and Sir Percy's foolishness is never once dropped. Fifty-nine plates ranging from Munch to Pillement carry the night, the cave, and the road out of the city, the same dark passages these rescues run through.