The Prisoner of Zenda was written by “Anthony Hope,” the pen name of Anthony Hope Hawkins (1863-1933). Hawkins was a lawyer who abandoned his practice to become a full time writer after the remarkable success of The Prisoner of Zenda and The Dolly Dialogues (1894), a comedy of manners.

Rudolf Rassendyll is the indolent, wealthy son of a British family and a member of the Elphbergs, the royal house of Ruritania, a small country within a day’s train ride from Dresden. On a whim, and to escape the nagging of his sister-in-law, who thinks he should do more with his life than knock about, Rassendyll travels Paris. There he sees a beautiful woman who he follows to Ruritania. Once in Ruritania Rassendyll discovers that he is a near-twin to King Rudolf of Ruritania, excepting Rassendyll’s mustache and beard. Rassendyll and the King meet by accident in a forest. The pair hit it off and have a fine night of drinking. But the next morning the King, having unwisely partaken of wine sent to him by his knavish brother, Black Michael, is drugged unconscious. This is especially unfortunate, as it is the morning of his coronation, and if he does not attend the coronation Black Michael will seize power.

So Rassendyll is persuaded by Rudolf’s adviser, the wily Colonel Sapt, to shave his beard and mustache and then impersonate Rudolf at the coronation. Rassendyll successfully pulls this off, but when he meets Princess Flavia, the beautiful intended of King Rudolf, Rassendyll is immediately attracted to her. Rassendyll makes ready to leave Ruritania, but when he and Sapt return to the inn where they left the unconscious Rudolf, they discover that he has disappeared and the guard they left with him has been killed. Rassendyll and Sapt quickly conclude that Black Michael is holding the king. From that point forward Rassendyll has to juggle several matters: the kingship, for he must continue impersonating the king lest Black Michael seize power; the king, for Rassendyll and Sapt have to rescue him; and Princess Flavia, who Rassendyll becomes increasingly smitten with. Although Flavia is supposed to marry the King, Rudolf does not take his life seriously enough seriously for Flavia’s liking, and their relationship is strained. Rassendyll has enough different qualities that Flavia is attracted to him, even after she discovers that he is not the King.

Eventually matters are resolved. The king is freed and restored to his throne, Black Michael is defeated and killed, though by the charming rogue and villain Rupert Hentzau, not by Rassendyll, and Rassendyll and Flavia are forced to separate. Her duty is to Ruritania and although she loves Rassendyll she must be Queen to Rudolf’s King. In Rupert of Hentzau, the far less successful sequel to The Prisoner of Zenda, Rassendyll must return to Ruritania, not just to see Flavia again–King Rudolf’s jealousy of her love for Rassendyll leads to a cessation of messages from Flavia to Rassendyll–but also to defeat the schemes of Rupert of Hentzau. Rupert of Hentzau ends tragically.

The Prisoner of Zenda created what is now called the Ruritanian or Graustarkian (see: Graustark) novel. In this genre of stories an outsider, traditionally American or English but only human in science fictional or fantasy versions of the story, travels to a small, fictional kingdom (usually European but occasionally Asian) which is a nostalgic throwback to earlier times, complete with a feudal system, royalty, and sword-wielding, dueling nobility. The outsider falls in love with a member of the country’s royalty and either becomes that country’s ruler, marries that country’s ruler, or helps decide the rulership of that country. There were precursors to Zenda, including A.C. Gunter’s Mr. Barnes of New York, but Zenda commenced the enthusiasm for the Ruritanian story. Though not often written today, the Ruritanian novel was extremely popular for several decades.

The Prisoner of Zenda will never be mistaken for Art, but as a fast-reading romantic adventure it is excellent. The novel lacks all of the ponderousness of many of adventure novels from earlier in the century. If Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a stew, The Prisoner of Zenda is a soufflé. Zenda has a briskness to it, a Gay Nineties insouciance, and a lack of serious authorial intent, all of which produces a quick pace and a modern tone. The novel’s concerns and subject matter are old-fashioned, but the treatment is not. Zenda is dialogue-heavy, and while Hawkins didn’t produce wit the novel’s dialogue is still punchy. Zenda does conform to the standard adventure formula of the Westerner/white man going to a foreign culture, immersing himself in it, and triumphing there as a superior to the natives, but the novel lacks the racial element of similar stories set in Africa or India, and Hawkins conveys the sense that Rassendyll triumphs through thought and planning and not through innate racial or cultural superiority. Hawkins also shows a refreshing lack of hesitation at having Rassendyll kill when necessary as well as at following characterization to its logical end, even when that results in an unhappy ending for the novel.

Of course, bestselling entertainment is rarely just that. Most often it either reveals something of the author or time period, contains some deeper or more literary quality than is immediately apparent, or had an effect beyond that of mere popularity. The Prisoner of Zenda is among the category of popular novels which are representative of deeper societal trends. Hawkins’ accelerated the trend of “imaginative colonisation”¹ whereby

the imaginary geography of the [Balkan] peninsula [was shaped] to the extent that images created by British writers represent for many people the best-known ‘faces’ of the Balkans...one of the world’s most powerful nations exploited the resources of the Balkans to supply its literary and entertainment industries. Such ‘imaginative colonisation,’ compared to traditional imperialism or economic colonialism, appears to be an innocent process: a cultural great power seizes and exploits the resources of an area, while imposing new frontiers on its mind-map and creating ideas which, reflected back, have the ability to reshape reality. The level at which this reshaping can take place ranges from the comparatively insignificant attempts of the ‘imaginee’ to create and represent a recognisable face to the ‘imagineer’ for economic benefit...to the more important impact of preconceived ideas on the processes of decision-making which determine the extent of foreign loans and investment, the level of military and humanitarian aid, and the speed at which individual Balkan countries are allowed to join ‘Europe,’ NATO or any other international organisation or club.²

¹ Vesna Goldsworthy, Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination (New London, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 2.

² Goldsworthy, Inventing Ruritania, 2.