The Prisoner of Zenza

Anthony Hope

Dec 2013 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

This adventure novel tells the story of Rudolf Rassendyll, younger brother of the Earl of Burlesdon and a distant cousin of Rudolf V, the new King of Ruritania. King Rudolf is a hard-drinking, feckless playboy, unpopular with the common people, but supported by the aristocracy. When Rudolf is abducted and imprisoned on the order of the Duke of Streslau, Rassendyll has to impersonate the King at his coronation. There are various plots and counter-plots, with the schemings of the Duke's mistress Antoinette de Mauban, and of the villainous henchman Rupert of Hentzau, complicated by Rassendyll's romance with Princess Flavia, the King's betrothed.

About the author

Anthony Hope (in full Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins) was born in London and educated at Marlborough and at Balliol College, Oxford. He became a lawyer, and dabbled in Liberal politics, but the immediate success of The Prisoner of Zenda, his fourth work, turned him entirely to writing. This work and its sequel, Rupert of Hentzau, both describe the perilous adventures of the Englishman Rudolph Rassendyll in the mythical kingdom of Ruritania. Anthony Hope successfully published many other novels and plays. He was knighted in 1918 and died in 1933.