Baroness Emma Orczy

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

Portrait of Baroness Emma Orczy by Bassano.
Born September 23, 1865 (1865-09-23)
Tarnaörs, Heves County, Hungary
Died November 12, 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 Blakeney

Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi (pronounced /ˈɔrtsiː/; September 23, 1865 – November 12, 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.

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[edit] Early life

Emmuska Orczy was born in Tarnaörs, Heves County, Hungary, and was the daughter of composer Baron Felix Orczy and Countess Emma Wass. 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."

[edit] 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 February 25, 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 waiting the decision 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.

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'.

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 male 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.[1]

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

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.)

[edit] Works

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
TRANSLATIONS
PLAYS
SHORT STORIES
NOVELS
OMNIBUS EDITIONS
NON FICTION
  • Links in the Chain of Life (autobiography, 1947)

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Keep the Home Fires Burning, Propaganda in the First World War, by Cate Haste, Allen Lane, 1977

[edit] References

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

[edit] External links

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