Of Anthony Hope’s many short stories and various novels, The Prisoner of Zenda remains his best known and enjoyed, praised by contemporaries such as Robert Louis Stevenson, followed by its less successful sequel, Rupert of Hentzau (1898). The novel offers a fairy-tale-like quality, replete with princes and princesses, kings, chivalry, and castles, but it adopts as a setting an area of Europe that would disappear after 1918. Hope supposedly got the idea for his novel while walking down the street one day when the name “Ruritania” popped into his head, followed by his sighting of two men on the street who, although unrelated, bore a startling resemblance to one another. He later placed his English protagonist, Rudolf Rassendyll, in the fictional setting of Ruritania, where his resemblance to the king would lead to many adventures.
While the novel could have dissolved into so much fantastic fluff, Hope anticipates and holds at bay readers’ skepticism with his inclusion of such realistic detail that his audience recognizes the era as their own and the setting as Eastern Europe.
Rassendyll reflects Hope’s own youthful self—a young, well-to-do man about town who can wield a sword, shoot a gun, and sit a horse well. Always ready to travel, he decides to journey to Ruritania to view the coronation of Rudolf the Fifth. He has more than a passing interest in the country, due to an 18th-century affair between Rudolf the Third of Ruritania and the wife of a Rassendyll ancestor. Rassendyll has inherited that ancestor’s remarkable red hair, long nose, and captivating blue eyes, physical aspects immediately recognized upon his arrival in the foreign country.
Rudolf is away much of the time, earning a reputation as a playboy drinker and remaining unfamiliar to his countrymen. They prefer his illegitimate half-brother, Duke Michael. Also known as Black Michael, the duke rules Elphberg Castle and has invited Rudolf to enjoy a few days of hunting at his lodge. Two hunters who exclaim over his resemblance to Rudolf discover Rassendyll in the duke’s forests. The king greets him jovially and drinks all night long with his newfound “cousin,” ignoring his aides’ pleas that he sleep before a journey the next morning to Zenda to meet with his guard and ride on to Streslau for his coronation. Black Michael’s steward presents a special bottle to the king, who passes out after drinking it.
The following morning, the king is too drunk to complete his coronation, and his men fear that Black Michael will take the throne. They convince Rassendyll to play the king’s role temporarily, and the predictable occurs when he must continue in the role for some time following Black Michael’s kidnapping of the real king. He falls in love with Princess Flavia, who also possesses flaming hair and who pays him homage following his coronation, as she is actually the next in line to the throne as the king’s cousin. They fall in love, to Flavia’s surprise, as she has never enjoyed the king’s company.
Eventually, the king is restored to the throne after being rescued from Black Michael and his adventuresome band, one of whom is the raucous Rupert of Hentzau, subject of Hope’s sequel. Flavia remains faithful to her duty, marrying Rudolf, although she adores Rassendyll. He writes at the book’s conclusion that he sees her as noble for her act: “She has followed where her duty to her country and her House led her, and is the wife of the King, uniting his subjects to him by the love they bear to her, giving peace and quiet days to thousands by her self-sacrifice.” His knowing her has ennobled him, as he vows to live as “becomes the man whom she loves.”
The popular novel appeared in a 1937 screen version with a star-studded cast, including Mary Astor, Ronald Colman, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Raymond Massey, and David Niven. Twenty-first-century readers continue to enjoy the ever-popular plot of mistaken identity, while feminist critics enjoy Flavia’s position as far more heroic in her sacrifice than any of her male counterparts. The book is readily available in electronic as well as print versions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Household, Geoffrey. Introduction to The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1984, vii–xiii.
Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis
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