The Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau
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. 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. Rassendyl masquerades as the king in order to save the country from a treacherous plot and secures the release of the wronged prisoner. In the process he wins the…
Anthony Hope is the pseudonym of Anthony Hope Hawkins, a successful and prolific author of fiction and drama. The son of a school headmaster, Hope was born in London in 1863. While practicing law, Hope also experimented with creative writing, and he published his first novel, a political satire entitled A Man of Mark, at his own expense in 1890. With the publication of his most famous novel, The Prisoner of Zenda, in 1894, Hope abandoned his legal career to write full-time, penning the short story collection, The Heart of Princess Osra (1896), and the Zenda sequel, Rupert of Hentzau (1898). Throughout his productive life, Hope published a wide variety of fiction, in areas ranging from the light domestic comedy of The Dolly Dialogues (1894) to the more…
Red Classics Rupert of Hentzau
Anthony Hope
Tarzan of the Apes and the Prisoner of Zenda
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Gore Vidal, Anthony Hope, Justin Kaplan