After a successful run on the stage, The Scarlet Pimpernel was  published as a novel in 1905. There have been numerous versions for film and television, as well as a musical. The one to look for is the 1982 BBC version starring Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, and Ian McKellen, although the 1934 version with Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, and Raymond Massey is also deservedly popular.

It's September 1792. Upper-crust English society regards Sir Percival Blakeney, Baronet, as both its wealthiest scion of the aristocracy and its most foolish. Even his wife, Marguerite, hasn’t uncovered the role he plays as the dashing hero known as the Scarlet Pimpernel because he leaves a note for the Committee of Public Safety signed with that flower every time he snatches someone sentenced to die on the guillotine. His arch-enemy, Chauvelin, is determined to track down the Scarlet Pimpernel and convinced that he can persuade Marguerite to help him. She was once, after all, a supporter of the French Revolution—and anyway, Chauvelin holds her brother’s life in the palm of his hand. Will Marguerite find a way out of the trap before she destroys her marriage?