Full of swash-buckling feats of heroism as well as witty irony, these adventure tales are also wonderfully executed satires on late nineteenth-century European politics.Īnthony Hope is the pseudonym of Anthony Hope Hawkins, a successful and prolific author of fiction and drama. Rupert of Hentzau, which ends in tragedy rather than triumph, is the darker, more problematic sequel to The Prisoner of Zenda. In the process he wins the heart of the beautiful princess Flavia, but ultimately surrenders the crown and the hand of his beloved princess to the rightful ruler.
Rassendyl masquerades as the king in order to save the country from a treacherous plot and secures the release of the wronged prisoner. Regarded by many critics as the finest adventure story ever written - and certainly one of the most popular - The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) tells the story of Rudolf Rassendyl, a dashing English gentleman who bears an uncanny resemblance to the ruler of the fictional kingdom of Ruritania. The popularity of the novels inspired the Ruritanian romance genre of literature, film, and theatre that features stories set in a fictional country, usually in Central Europe and Eastern Europe, such as Ruritania, the Central European realm that named the genre, which includes the Graustark novels by George Barr McCutcheon.Best known for his political fairy tale, The Prisoner of Zenda, which saw four major screen adaptations, including the acclaimed 1937 incarnation starring Ronald Colman, Anthony Hope was one of the few novelists to achieve wide popular and critical admiration during his lifetime. The name of the villain in The Prisoner of Zenda, Rupert of Hentzau, is the title of the sequel novel, Rupert of Hentzau, published four years later and included in some editions of The Prisoner of Zenda. Fortuitously, an English gentleman on holiday in Ruritania who resembles the monarch is persuaded to act as his political decoy in an effort to save the unstable political situation of the interregnum. Political forces within the realm are such that, in order for the king to retain the crown, his coronation must proceed. The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope, is an adventure novel in which the King of Ruritania is drugged on the eve of his coronation and thus is unable to attend the ceremony. 1898 Grosset & Dunlap publishers, New York hardbound with green decorative boards minor foxing and aging for it's age stong binding see pics.
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