A Child of the Revolution

A Child of the Revolution was published in 1932 and is one of the later Pimpernel novels, written almost three decades after Orczy first invented the character. The Revolution-era setting is unchanged. The book follows a young French aristocrat named Bertrand and his romantic involvement with a Republican woman during the height of the Terror, with the Scarlet Pimpernel and his League operating in the background as the eventual rescuers.

Orczy was much more willing by this point to give significant page time to characters outside the Pimpernel’s immediate circle. The novel reads in places almost like a standalone historical romance with the League dropped in for the third-act climax. Some readers find this dilutes the formula. Others find it gives the late Pimpernel books a richer sense of the period. The historical research is more careful than in some of the earlier novels. The romance plot is conventional but well executed. A late but interesting entry in the series.