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Sep 23, 1865 — Nov 12, 1947· 82 yrs

UNITED KINGDOM AUTHOR · FICTION · HISTORY

Emma Orczy

Also known as: Emmuska Orczy, Emma Magdalena Rosalia Maria Josefa Barbara Orczy

42
BOOKS
3.8
AVG RATING (92)
5
READERS

Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi was born in Tarnaörs, Heves County, Hungary, the daughter of composer Baron Felix Orczy and Countess Emma Wass. In 1868, fearing a potential peasant revolution, her parents left Hungary. They lived in Budapest, Brussels, and Paris before settling in London in 1880. Orczy attended West London School of Art and then Heatherley's School of Fine Art. In 1894, she married illustrator Montague MacLean Barstow, whom she had met at art school. The couple had very little money, and Orczy started to work with her husband as a translator and an illustrator. In 1899, she had a child, and published her first novel, The Emperor's Candlesticks. In 1903, she and her husband coauthored her most famous work, The Scarlet Pimpernel. She went on to write over a dozen sequels to the novel. She also created a number of memorable detectives: Lady Molly Robertson-Kirk of Scotland Yard, who heads the "Female Department" (her cases are collected in Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, 1910); Monsieur Fernand, a Napoleonic-era secret agent (The Man in Grey, 1918); and Patrick Mulligan, a shady attorney (Skin o' My Tooth, 1928). Her greatest detective was the Old Man in the Corner, probably the first of the "armchair" detectives. He sits in a chair in a London tea shop, unraveling knots and intricate cases brought to him by Polly Burton, a young reporter. Many of these were later collected in The Old Man in the Corner (1909). [Leslie S. Klinger, In the Shadow of Sherlock Holmes (2011)]

Tarnaörs, United Kingdom
Wikipedia

A SURGING, SEETHING, MURMURING CROWD of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.

— from The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1900

Most acclaimed

#2

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

3.0 (1)

Sherlock Holmes was not the only detective solving mysteries and foiling the plans of criminal masterminds in Victorian and Edwardian England. The years from 1890 to 1914 were a golden age for English magazines and most of them published crime and detective fiction. The success of the Holmes stories spawned countless imitators. This volume highlights some of those rivals of Sherlock Holmes. They include: >THE THINKING MACHINE - Jacques Futtrelle's intellectual genius Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, the Thinking Machine, capable of solving the most baffling mysteries through brainpower alone. >CARNACKI THE GHOST FINDER - detective of the occult created by the legendary horror writer William Hope Hodgson. >NOVEMBER JOE - Hesketh Prichard's Canadian woodsman who uses his extraordinary powers of observation to track down villains and bring them to justice. >CRAIG KENNEDY - Arthur B. Reeve's scientific detective from the early 1900s who uses startling new technological advancements like X-rays and microphones. It may well be true that there has never been a detective quite like Sherlock Holmes, but he did not stand alone. He had his rivals and, as this collection of short stories shows, many of their adventures were as exciting and entertaining as those of the master himself.

#1

The Scarlet Pimpernel

1900

4.3 (28)

The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905) is a play and adventure novel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy set during the Reign of Terror following the start of the French Revolution.

#3

The Old Man in the Corner

1909

3.5 (4)

The Old Man (Bill Owen) sits in a cheap restaurant frequented by journalists and plays with a bit of string, which he ties into elaborate knots as he talks. Addressing himself to Polly Burton, a young newspaperwoman with whom he has struck up a slight acquaintance, he focuses upon crimes mentioned in the newspapers. He summarizes the circumstances, describes the personalities, and then sneeringly provides the correct solution which has evaded the police.

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