The Prisoner of Zenda

Anthony Hope's novel, The Prisoner of Zenda, first out in 1894. The English gentleman Rudolf Rassendyll, now residing in Ruritania, must assume the guise of the king to foil a plot against his monarchy in this well-liked late-Victorian romance. Hope's buoyant and often sardonic tone rescues the story from its implausibility. Hope's law career was derailed by the success of the book, prompting him to write the sequel, Rupert of Hentzau (1898).