The Scarlet Pimpernel and What Superheroes Owe to Baroness Emma Orczy

You’d think after discovering that Alexandre Dumas was multiracial years ago, I’d have learned to assume less about the writers of historical adventure novels, but I had no idea that The Scarlet Pimpernel was written by a woman. Or narrated by a woman! They left that out of the Broadway show and illustrated book retelling of the Looney Tunes adaptation that were, uh, my only experiences of the story as a kid.

Here’s to reading the original!

Previously in Badass Women in History

• Female Military Leaders
• A Ching Shih Movie
• Women Airforce Service Pilots

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Susana Polo

Susana Polo thought she'd get her Creative Writing degree from Oberlin, work a crap job, and fake it until she made it into comics. Instead she stumbled into a great job: founding and running this very website (she's Editor at Large now, very fancy). She's spoken at events like Geek Girl Con, New York Comic Con, and Comic Book City Con, wants to get a Batwoman tattoo and write a graphic novel, and one of her canine teeth is in backwards.

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