The Scarlet Pimpernel?

Question

Anyone know a website that's kinda like SparkNotes and gives you the gist of each chapter?

If you can find one, please give me the link.

Thanks.

Answer 1

The action takes place during the French Revolution, when a secret society of English aristocrats, called the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, is engaged in rescuing their French counterparts from the guillotine. Their leader, the Scarlet Pimpernel, takes his nickname from the small red flower with which he signs his messages. No one except his small band of 19 followers, and possibly the Prince of Wales, knows his true identity.
Marguerite Blakeney, a beautiful French actress, is married to wealthy English fop, Sir Percy Blakeney. The couple have become estranged as a result of her earlier unintentional denunciation of a French aristocratic family, resulting in their being sent to the guillotine. Like many others, Marguerite is entranced by stories of the Scarlet Pimpernel — an anonymous hero who, through a combination of courage and daring, has rescued many aristocrats from Madame la Guillotine, and brought them safely to England.

''We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.

Is he in heaven?
—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel.''
—Sir Percy Blakeney (ch.12)

Marguerite's beloved brother, Armand, is discovered to be part of the Scarlet Pimpernel's organization, and he is therefore in danger of being executed. Marguerite is blackmailed by the wily French ambassador to England, Citizen Chauvelin; if she helps him discover the Pimpernel's identity, Armand's life will be spared. She cannot face the thought of losing her brother, and she hopes that the Pimpernel will be able to save him. She is contemptuous of her seemingly witless husband, so she does not go to him for help, and passes along information bearing on the Pimpernel's identity to Chauvelin.

When Sir Percy leaves for France, Marguerite discovers, to her horror, that he is the Pimpernel — the man she has betrayed, who had created the persona of a witless fop in order to deceive the world as to his true activities. She follows him to France to try to warn him. Sir Percy outwits Chauvelin, and manages to rescue Armand, as well as the father of Marguerite's schoolfriend, who has been accused of treason in the country of France and under threat of execution. Touched by his wife's remorse, and by her devotion and courage, he forgives her, and the reconciled couple returns to England.
The Scarlet Pimpernel is often cited as an early (perhaps the earliest) precursor of the superhero of United States comic books: he is an independently wealthy person with a secret identity which he maintains in action by disguises, while in public life he appears as a politically irrelevant dandy to draw attention away from himself. In his hero guise, he accomplishes good, in a field in which the state is not competent to act, with his superior reasoning and fighting abilities. However, he never in the entire canon takes a life or indeed seriously wounds a foe. He even has a symbol in his name, which he does use as an emblem, though not on a costume. Johnston McCulley's Zorro (1919) and Bob Kane's Batman (1939) later followed the same pattern. In addition, his penchant for disguises and his great intellect are similar to those of Sherlock Holmes.
The Scarlet Pimpernel, available at Project Gutenberg.
Discussion of the creation of The Scarlet Pimpernel
IMDB link to Scarlet Pimpernel movies
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1935) at the TCM Movie Database
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1917) at the TCM Movie Database
Additional information and digital copies of all books available at Blakeney Manor
Official website for The Scarlet Pimpernel Broadway musical

Answer 2

It might be easier to write your own chapter summaries. Not every book has them.