Zendan Vanki
1894
What if you woke up and had to be a king? That's the delicious premise at the heart of this 1894 swashbuckler. Rudolf Rassendyll is a perfectly comfortable, slightly aimless English gentleman until he discovers he bears an uncanny resemblance to the Crown Prince of Ruritania, a small Alpine kingdom teetering on the edge of civil war. When the rightful heir is spirited away to a dungeon, Rassendyll is persuaded to step into the throne, and the crown, purely as a diplomatic formality. But nothing is simple in Ruritania. He must face the notorious Rupert of Hentzau, a duelist with a smile like a silver blade. He must navigate treacherous political currents. And perhaps most dangerously, he must confront his own heart, which has inconveniently chosen to fall for the woman the fake king is supposed to marry. The Prisoner of Zenda is sheer, glittering entertainment: witty, romantic, and unapologetically improbable. It invented the mistaken-identity romance and has been adapted for film five times because the premise is simply irresistible. If you've ever wondered what it would mean to live someone else's life, and love someone you shouldn't, this is the book.
Editions
X-Ray
“For my part, if a man must needs be a knave I would have him a debonair knave... It makes your sin no worse as I conceive, to do it à la mode and stylishly.””
— Anthony Hope
“I have an income nearly sufficient for my wants (no one's income is ever quite sufficient, you know).””
— Anthony Hope
“If love were the only thing, Iwould follow you”
— Anthony Hope
“There are moments when I dare not think of it, but there are others when I rise in spirit to where she ever dwells; then I can thank God that I love the noblest lady in the world, the most gracious and beautiful, and that there was nothing in my love that made her fall short in her high duty.””
— Anthony Hope
“God save the King!"Old Sapt's mouth wrinkled into a smile."God save 'em both!" he whispered.””
— Anthony Hope
“But if it be never - if I can never hold sweet converse again with her, or look upon her face, or know from her her love; why, then, this side the grave, I will live as becomes the man whom she loves...””
— Anthony Hope
“A real king's life is perhaps a hard one; but a pretended king's is, I warrant, much harder.””
— Anthony Hope
“Ah! but a man cannot be held to write down in cold blood the wild and black thoughts that storm his brain when an uncontrolled passion has battered a breach for them. Yet, unless he sets up as a saint, he need not hate himself for them. He is better employed, as it humbly seems to me, in giving thanks that power to resist was given to him ....””
— Anthony Hope
“It is my belief that, given the necessary physical likeness, it was far easier to pretend to be king of Ruritania than it would have been to personate my next-door neighbor.””
— Anthony Hope
