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Like issybird, I first read this when I was about 10 or 11, and so was very surprised back then when Marguerite realised who the Scarlet Pimpernel was. And I loved the book at that time.
Moving on several decades, I can't say I loved it this time around. It certainly bounced along at a good pace and I kept reading, but I found Orczy's style was pretty clunky, and the various descriptions of Marguerite's dazzling beauty, her wit, her dainty little hands, etc grew hard to bear.
One interesting point for me was that we really get to see very little of the real Sir Percy. We see him through Marguerite's eyes as the silly fop, we see him in his disguise at the end of the book, but we see very little of him as himself. Probably the only time is when he is in the French inn with Chauvelin.
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