The Prisoner of Zenda is an adventure novel by Anthony Hope, published in 1894. The king of the fictional country of Ruritania is abducted on the eve of his coronation, and the protagonist, an English gentleman on holiday who fortuitously resembles the monarch, is persuaded to act as his political decoy in an attempt to save the situation. The books were extremely popular and inspired a new genre of Ruritanian romance, including the Graustark novels by George Barr McCutcheon. The villainous Rupert of Hentzau gave his name to the sequel published in 1898, which is included in some editions of this novel.
Plot Summary
The narrator is twenty-nine year old the Hon. Rudolf Rassendyll, younger brother of the Earl of Burlesdon and (through an ancestor's sexual indiscretion) a distant cousin and look alike of Rudolf V, the soon-to-be-crowned King of Ruritania, a "highly interesting and important" [1] Germanic kingdom somewhere imprecisely between the German and Austrian Empires. Rudolf Elphberg, the crown prince, is a hard-drinking playboy, unpopular with the common people, but supported by the aristocracy, the Catholic Church, the army, and the rich classes in general. The political rival to this absolute monarch is his younger half-brother, "Black" Michael, Duke and Governor of Strelsau, the capital. Michael has no legitimate claim to the throne, because he is the son of their father's second, morganatic marriage: there are hints, from his swarthy appearance and Rassendyll's taunting him as a 'mongrel', that he may be partly Jewish. Michael is regarded as champion of Strelsau's working classes, both the proletariat and the peasants, and of what Hope refers to as the criminal classes. The novel seems sympathetic, however, with those who would support the dissolute despot.
When Michael has Rudolf abducted and imprisoned in the castle in the small town of Zenda, Rassendyll must impersonate his double at the coronation. There are complications, plots, and counter-plots, among them the schemes of Michael's mistress Antoinette de Mauban, and those of his villainous henchman Rupert of Hentzau, and Rassendyll falling in love with Princess Flavia, the King's betrothed. In the end, the King is restored to his throne — but the lovers must part. Source- wiki
Contents
- CHAPTER 1- The Rassendylls--With a Word on the Elp...
- CHAPTER 2 - Concerning the color of Men's Hair
- CHAPTER 3- A Merry Evening with a Distant Relative...
- CHAPTER 5- The Adventures of an Understudy
- CHAPTER 4- The King Keeps His Appointment
- CHAPTER 6- The Secret of a Cellar
- CHAPTER 7- His Majesty Sleeps in Strelsau
- CHAPTER 8- A Fair Cousin and a Dark Brother
- CHAPTER 9- A New Use for a Tea-table
- CHAPTER 10- A Great Chance for a Villain
- CHAPTER 11- Hunting a Very Big Boar
- CHAPTER 12- I Receive a Visitor and Bait a Hook
- CHAPTER 13- An Improvement on Jacob's Ladder
- CHAPTER 14 - A Night Outside the Castle
- CHAPTER 15- I Talk with a Tempter
- CHAPTER 16- A Desperate Plan
- CHAPTER 17- Young Rupert's Midnight Diversions
- CHAPTER 18 - The Forcing of the Trap
- CHAPTER 19 - Face to Face in the Forest
- CHAPTER 20 - The Prisoner and the King
- CHAPTER 21- If love were all!
- CHAPTER 22 - Present, Past--and Future?
