Bastille Day

July 14 is Bastille Day, the anniversary of the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. If you aren't ready for the revolutionary fun to be over yet just because Independence Day is past, why not pick up some swashbuckling adventure from the library in the form of The Scarlet Pimpernel? Not only do we have the original book, but we have many of the sequels as well. If you prefer your swashbuckling on the screen, the best movie adaptations are the black and white one starring Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon and the version from the 1980s starring Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, and Ian McKellen, which is a hybrid of the original novel and the sequel Eldorado.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens set the standard for fictional portrayals of the French Revolution, but although it's a literary classic it actually isn't terribly historically accurate. For example, Dickens depicts constant rate of executions by guillotine throughout the revolution that was actually only reached for short periods of time near the end of the phase called the Reign of Terror. Fans of historical fiction, retellings of classics, and A Tale of Two Cities may want to check out A Far Better Rest by Susanne Alleyn. Alleyn presents the story through the eyes of Sydney Carton, who in spite of being the hero gets very little "screen time" in the original story, and attempts to meld Dickens with historical fact. It's out of print, so the easiest place to find it is here at the library.

Alleyn also writes a series of detective novels set in the years just after and before the revolution. Start with Game of Patience and A Treasury of Regrets, and be ready for the prequel coming out later this month, The Cavalier of the Apocalypse.

-- Kristen, Main Library