The Scarlet Pimpernel
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50 free The Scarlet Pimpernel trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel gave fiction one of its most copied ideas: a hero who hides in plain sight by acting the fool. By day Sir Percy Blakeney is the laziest dandy in London; by night he is slipping condemned French aristocrats past the guillotine, with the relentless Chauvelin always one step behind. This quiz follows the novel from the gates of revolutionary Paris to the cliffs near Calais. Expect questions on the disguises and escapes, on Marguerite's impossible choice between her brother and a stranger she admires, on the league of young Englishmen who follow their chief, and on the clues that finally give the secret away. Later questions cover the author's own unlikely story, the sequels, and the stage, screen and cartoon versions. It works as a reading check for students who have just finished the book, a warm-up for a reading group, or a challenge for anyone who enjoys a good swashbuckler. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what does Sir Percy tip into his snuffbox to disable Chauvelin at a Calais inn?
Pepper
Pepper from the inn's own supper table does it: Sir Percy offers a polite pinch, and Chauvelin is left sneezing and blinded while his quarry strolls out of the door.
Q 02Which Marvel Comics co-creator called the Scarlet Pimpernel the first character who could be called a superhero?
Stan Lee
Stan Lee read the Pimpernel stories as a child. Sir Percy already had the superhero's kit decades before capes and masks: a secret identity, a calling card and a band of helpers.
Q 03Which Looney Tunes star plays the hero of The Scarlet Pumpernickel, a 1950 cartoon spoof of The Scarlet Pimpernel?
Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck pitches the swashbuckler to his studio boss because he is tired of comedy roles, then realises he never wrote an ending. Animators later voted it among the 50 greatest cartoons.
Q 04In The Scarlet Pimpernel, a cart driver disguised as an old hag clears the Paris gate by saying her grandson has what?
Smallpox
Smallpox sends the sergeant and the whole crowd backing away from the cart, which rolls out of Paris with a condemned countess and her two children hidden inside.
Q 05In Baroness Orczy's novel, Sir Percy signs his secret notes with a scarlet pimpernel; what kind of thing is a real one?
A wildflower
A wildflower of English roadsides, the pimpernel is tiny and star-shaped, which is the joke: the most wanted man in France hides behind one of the humblest things in the hedgerow.
Q 06Baroness Orczy, who created the very English Scarlet Pimpernel, was born on a family estate in which country?
Hungary
Hungary is where she was born, on the family estate at Tarnaörs, which her parents left for Budapest in 1868 fearing a peasant revolution. The family settled in London when she was 14.
Q 07In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what is Sir Percy doing when Chauvelin enters the supper room to trap the Pimpernel?
Sleeping on a sofa
Sleeping on a sofa, mouth open and breathing noisily, Sir Percy looks so harmless that Chauvelin lies down on another one to wait for a hero who is already in the room.
Q 08Which English actor played Chauvelin opposite Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour in the 1982 film The Scarlet Pimpernel?
Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen's Chauvelin has a past relationship with Marguerite in this version, which was filmed at English stately homes including Blenheim Palace.
Q 09Which anti-apartheid leader was dubbed the Black Pimpernel, after Baroness Orczy's hero, for evading police in disguise?
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela earned the nickname before his arrest and long imprisonment. He shared it with Harald Edelstam, a Swedish diplomat who helped resistance fighters escape the Germans.
Q 10Where was Baroness Orczy standing when, by her own account, the character of the Scarlet Pimpernel first came to her?
A London Underground platform
A London Underground platform was where the idea struck. She sent the finished novel to 12 publishers, and it reached print only after the stage version had found an audience.
Q 11In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which patriotic song does Sir Percy sing loudly as he walks into Chauvelin's trap at Calais?
God Save the King
God Save the King, belted out in a cheerful voice, tells the hidden Marguerite that her husband has arrived, and that he does not care who else at the inn hears him.
Q 12In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what object on the floor of Sir Percy's study tells Marguerite who her husband really is?
A gold ring
A gold ring rolls across the carpet when her foot knocks it, and the tiny star-shaped device engraved on its shield is one she has seen before.
Q 13In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what was Marguerite St. Just's celebrated profession in Paris before she married Sir Percy?
Actress
Q 21Who played Sir Percy in the 1934 film The Scarlet Pimpernel, opposite Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey?
Leslie Howard
Leslie Howard's Sir Percy is often called the definitive one. In 1941 he directed himself in an updated version of the role, a mild professor who smuggles victims out of Nazi Germany.
Q 22Which diplomat was inspired by the film Pimpernel Smith before rescuing thousands of Jews in wartime Budapest?
Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg saw the banned film at the British Embassy in Stockholm with his sister Nina, and told her as they left their seats that it was the kind of thing he would like to do.
Q 23Which composer wrote the 1997 Broadway musical The Scarlet Pimpernel, which starred Douglas Sills as Sir Percy?
Actress at the Comédie Française, she also hosted a salon of the brightest minds in Paris, which is why London is baffled that she chose a husband who seems so dull.
Q 14In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which Dover inn kept by Mr. Jellyband is the first stop for refugees smuggled out of France?
The Fisherman's Rest
The Fisherman's Rest is where the league's young men bring the families they rescue, and where two of them are later ambushed in the coffee-room by Chauvelin's agents.
Q 15In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what is the name of Sir Percy's private yacht, which carries the rescued across the Channel?
The Day Dream
The Day Dream is the schooner that waits off the French coast during the final rescue, and the last chapter finds husband and wife reconciled on board.
Q 16In The Scarlet Pimpernel, how does Sir Andrew Ffoulkes try to destroy the secret note Marguerite wants to read?
Burning it in a candle
Burning it in a candle nearly works, but Marguerite pretends to feel faint, plucks the scorched scrap from his fingers and claims the smell is a cure for giddiness.
Q 17In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which royal is Sir Percy's intimate friend and is rumoured to know the Pimpernel's identity?
The Prince of Wales
The Prince of Wales treats Sir Percy as a favourite companion and escorts Marguerite at the ball. Asked whether he knows who the hero is, he refuses to confirm or deny it.
Q 18In The Scarlet Pimpernel, in which town on the Thames outside London does Sir Percy keep his superb mansion?
Richmond
Richmond is where Marguerite, home from the ball at dawn, at last tells her husband that her brother is in danger, and where he promises to help.
Q 19In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what does Chauvelin hold over Marguerite to force her to spy for him at a London ball?
A stolen letter
A stolen letter written by her brother Armand proves he is working with the Pimpernel, so Chauvelin offers a trade: Armand's life for the hero's name.
Q 20In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which nobleman's family was guillotined after Marguerite denounced him?
The Marquis de St. Cyr
The Marquis de St. Cyr had Armand beaten for courting his daughter, and Marguerite's angry accusation of treason then sent the whole family to their deaths.
Frank Wildhorn
Frank Wildhorn set a book and lyrics by Nan Knighton, and the show later travelled to Japan, where the all-female Takarazuka Revue staged its own version.
Q 24Which masked avenger of 1919, a nobleman posing as an idle dandy, is a literary heir of the Scarlet Pimpernel?
Zorro
Zorro's Don Diego wears lace, writes poetry and shuns violence so that nobody suspects him, the same trick of playing harmless that Sir Percy had used more than a decade earlier.
Q 25The Scarlet Pimpernel was a stage play before it was a novel; in which English city did it first open?
Nottingham
Nottingham saw the 1903 opening fall flat, but the leading man kept faith, had the last act rewritten and took it to London, where it went on to pass 2,000 performances.
Q 26Besides the Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy created which Scotland Yard sleuth, an early female detective lead?
Lady Molly
Lady Molly of Scotland Yard appeared in 1910. Orczy also wrote the Old Man in the Corner, an armchair sleuth who solves crimes chiefly by logic.
Q 27The success of The Scarlet Pimpernel let Baroness Orczy buy a villa in which Riviera resort, her wartime home?
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo's Villa Bijou was her home through the war years. Her husband died there in 1942, and she could not return to London until the fighting was over.
Q 28Which novel, the first sequel to The Scarlet Pimpernel, did Baroness Orczy publish a year after the original?
I Will Repay
I Will Repay is remembered for a slip: its climax ends at a famous lovers' grave in a Paris cemetery that was not founded until 1804, more than ten years after the events of the story.
Q 29In The Scarlet Pimpernel, a nobleman has Armand St. Just thrashed for sending what to the nobleman's daughter?
A love poem
A love poem, small and ardent, was the whole offence: the next night the nobleman's valets waylaid Armand outside Paris, because a commoner had dared to court an aristocrat's daughter.
Q 30In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which rescued convent schoolfriend of Marguerite does Sir Andrew Ffoulkes marry?
Suzanne de Tournay
Suzanne de Tournay is smuggled out of Paris with her mother and brother in the opening chapters, and the novel closes with her brilliant wedding to Sir Andrew, her escort across the Channel.