The Prisoner of Zenda is an 1894 adventure novel by Anthony Hope, in which the King of Ruritania is drugged on the eve of his coronation and thus is unable to attend the ceremony. Political forces within the realm are such that, in order for the king to retain the crown, his coronation must proceed. Fortuitously, an English gentleman on holiday in Ruritania who resembles the monarch is persuaded to act as his political decoy in an effort to save the unstable political situation of the interregnum.
A sequel, Rupert of Hentzau, was published in 1898 and is included in some editions of The Prisoner of Zenda. The popularity of the novels inspired the Ruritanian romance genre of literature, film, and theatre that features stories set in a fictional country, usually in Central or Eastern Europe, for example Graustark from the novels of George Barr McCutcheon, and the neighbouring countries of Syldavia and Borduria in the Tintin comics.
Synopsis
On the eve of the coronation of Rudolf V of Ruritania, he encounters his distant relative, English nobleman Rudolf Rassendyll, come to witness the festivities. The two men look very much alike. The future king and his loyal attendants, Colonel Sapt and Fritz von Tarlenheim, wine and dine their new acquaintance at a hunting lodge. However, Rudolf V's younger half-brother Michael, Duke of Strelsau, sees to it he is presented a bottle of drugged wine. His friends cannot rouse him the next morning.
Not showing up for the coronation would prove disastrous, but Sapt believes that fate has sent Rassendyll to Ruritania. He persuades the Englishman to impersonate the King. They hide the King in the cellar of the lodge and proceed to the capital. The ceremony goes off without a hitch. However, when they go to retrieve the real King Rudolf, they find that he has been abducted.
Rassendyll must continue his deception, but at least Duke Michael cannot unmask him without incriminating himself. While Sapt searches for the King, Rassendyll becomes acquainted with the beautiful Princess Flavia, who is beloved by the people. He learns that everyone expects them to wed. Despite himself, he falls in love with her, and she with him.
Help comes from an unexpected source. Antoinette de Mauban, Michael's mistress, does not want to lose him to Flavia. She confirms that the King is being held in the castle at Zenda. Rassendyll, Sapt, von Tarlenheim and ten picked men go "hunting" nearby. An attempt is made on Rassendyll's life by three of the Six, Duke Michael's most trusted henchmen. When that fails, Rupert Hentzau, one of the Six, visits Rassendyll to present Michael's offer of a million crowns to leave the country. When Rassendyll turns him down, Rupert flees after trying to kill him with a dagger. Rassendyll is only wounded in the shoulder.
They take captive Johann, a servant working at the castle, and bribe him into telling all he knows. At the first sign of an assault, King Rudolf is to be killed, and his corpse dropped secretly into the water. Michael would be no worse off than before, as Rassendyll could hardly accuse him of regicide.
A few days pass. Rassendyll swims the moat at night to reconnoiter. He kills a sentry in a boat. He hears King Rudolf talking to one of his captors, then returns to his friends. However, they are discovered by three of the Six. Two of the Six are killed, at the cost of three of Sapt's men, but Rupert reaches the safety of the castle.
Later, they encounter Rupert again, this time accompanying the body of his friend, one of the Six killed earlier. Rupert privately makes another proposal: Have Sapt and von Tarlenheim lead an assault on the castle. With them and Duke Michael all dead (with Rupert's assistance), the two of them would have all the spoils to themselves. Rupert reveals a contributing motive; he is attracted to Antoinette de Mauban. Rassendyll turns him down.
More information is extracted from Johann, including the alarming news that King Rudolf is very ill: Ill enough for Duke Michael to send for a doctor. Rassendyll offers Johann another large bribe to open the front door at two in the morning. Rassendyll enters the castle by stealth before then, then watches as Rupert, caught trying to force himself on Antoinette, stabs the outraged Michael. Then, outnumbered by Michael's men, he dives into the moat. Rassendyll kills one of the Six and takes the key to the cell holding King Rudolf. The King is guarded by Detchard and Bersonin. Rassendyll slays Bersonin, but Detchard hurries to murder the King. The doctor sacrifices himself, grappling with Detchard before being murdered, giving Rassendyll time to catch up to and kill Detchard, with the King's assistance.
Rupert appears at the drawbridge, defying Michael's men, and challenges Michael to fight him for Antoinette. However Antoinette cries out that Duke Michael is dead. Rassendyll has obtained a pistol, but cannot bring himself to shoot Rupert. Antoinette has no such qualms, but she misses, and her target leaps into the moat. Then Rassendyll hears Sapt's voice he realizes that reinforcements have arrived. With King Rudolf no longer needing his protection, Rassendyll pursues Rupert. Rupert allows him to catch up. Before their duel can reach a conclusion, however, von Tarlenheim arrives, and Rupert races away on horseback.
When Princess Flavia learns, by accident, about Rudolf Rassendyll, she faints. King Rudolf is restored to his throne, but the lovers are trapped by duty and honour, and must part.
Adaptations
The novel has been adapted many times, mainly for film but also stage, musical, operetta, radio, and television. Probably the best-known version is the 1937 Hollywood film. The charismatic but Machiavellian Rupert of Hentzau has been interpreted by Ramon Novarro (1922), Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (1937), and James Mason (1952).
Stage
The Prisoner of Zenda (1895–96) was the first adaptation, a stage play by Edward Rose. It opened in New York in 1895 starring E.H. Sothern and the next year in the West End in London starring George Alexander and Evelyn Millard.
Princess Flavia (1925), an operetta with the score by Sigmund Romberg.
Zenda (1963), a musical that closed on the road prior to a scheduled opening on Broadway. Adapted from the 1925 Princess Flavia.
Film
The Prisoner of Zenda (1913): Starring James K. Hackett, Beatrice Beckley, David Torrence, Fraser Coalter, William R. Randall and Walter Hale. Adapted by Hugh Ford and directed by Ford and Edwin S. Porter, it was produced by Adolph Zukor and was the first production of the Famous Players Film Company.
The Prisoner of Zenda (1915): Starring Henry Ainley, Gerald Ames, George Bellamy, Marie Anita Bozzi, Jane Gail, Arthur Holmes-Gore, Charles Rock and Norman Yates. It was adapted by W. Courtney Rowden and directed by George Loane Tucker.
The Prisoner of Zenda (1922): Starring Ramón Novarro, Lewis Stone, Alice Terry, Robert Edeson, Stuart Holmes, Malcolm McGregor and Barbara La Marr. It was adapted by Mary O'Hara and directed by Rex Ingram.
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937): Starring Ronald Colman as Rassendyll and Rudolph, Madeleine Carroll as Princess Flavia, Raymond Massey as Michael, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Rupert of Hentzau, C. Aubrey Smith as Colonel Zapt and David Niven as Captain Fritz von Tarlenheim. David O. Selznick decided to produce the film, partly as a comment on the Edward VIII abdication crisis, and it was directed by John Cromwell. Of the many film adaptations, this is considered by many to be the definitive version. Leslie Halliwell puts it at No. 590 of all the films ever made, saying that the "splendid schoolboy adventure story" of the late Victorian novel is "perfectly transferred to the screen", and quotes a 1971 comment by John Cutts that the film becomes more "fascinating and beguiling" as time goes by. Halliwell's Film Guide 2008 calls it "one of the most entertaining films to come out of Hollywood".
The Prisoner of Zenda (1952): Starring Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, Louis Calhern, Jane Greer, Lewis Stone, Robert Douglas, James Mason and Robert Coote. Stone, who played the lead in the 1922 version, had a minor role in this remake. It was adapted by Edward Rose, (dramatisation) Wells Root, John L. Balderston, Noel Langley and Donald Ogden Stewart (additional dialogue, originally uncredited). It was directed by Richard Thorpe. It is a shot-for-shot copy of the 1937 film, the only difference being that it was made in Technicolor. Halliwell judges it "no match for the happy inspiration of the original".
The Great Race (1965): A comic interlude in the film sees the characters, after driving across Asia, enter the tiny kingdom of Carpania, whose alcoholic and foppish Crown Prince Friedrich Hapnick is the spitting image of Professor Fate. Plotters under the leadership of Baron Rolfe von Stuppe and General Kuhster kidnap the Prince, Fate, Max, and Maggie. Max escapes and joins Leslie to rescue the others. Fate is forced to masquerade as the Prince during the coronation so that the rebels can gain control of the kingdom. Leslie and Max overcome Von Stuppe's henchmen and confront Von Stuppe. Following a climactic sword fight with Leslie, Von Stuppe attempts escape by leaping to a waiting boat, but bursts the hull and sinks it. Leslie and Max return the real Prince to the capital in time to defeat Kuhster's plan for a military coup. Fate, still masquerading as Prince Hapnick, takes refuge in a bakery but falls into a huge cake. A pie fight ensues involving the racers, the Prince's men and the conspirators. The five racers, covered in pie filling, depart Carpania with King Friedrich's best wishes.
The Prisoner of Zenda (1979): A comic version, starring Peter Sellers, Lynne Frederick, Lionel Jeffries, Elke Sommer, Gregory Sierra, Jeremy Kemp, Catherine Schell, Simon Williams and Stuart Wilson. It was adapted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais and directed by Richard Quine. In this version, Sellers plays the King, his father, and the other main character Syd Frewin, a London Hansom Cab driver, who finds himself employed as a double to the King and eventually changes places with him permanently.
The Prisoner of Zenda (1988), an Australian animated version for children, starring Robert Coleby, Claire Crowther, David Whitney, Franc Violi, and Walter Sullivan, with a screenplay by Leonard Lee, produced by Burbank Animation Studios.
Legacy
In a popular but very questionable account, a German circus acrobat named Otto Witte claimed he had been briefly mistaken for the new King of Albania at the time of that country's separation from the Ottoman Empire, and that he was crowned and reigned a few days. However, the date of this claim (1913), and the lack of any evidence to back it up, suggest that Witte made up his story after seeing the first film version of the novel. The novel Every Inch a King (2005) by Harry Turtledove takes Witte's story and places it in a high fantasy setting.
Author Salman Rushdie cited The Prisoner of Zenda in the epigraph to Haroun and the Sea of Stories, the novel he wrote while living in hiding in the late 1980s. The novel has been part of the syllabus of higher secondary schools in Pakistan for over three decades.
