Rudolf Rassendyll is the younger son of an earl and a distant relation of the Elphbergs, the ruling family of Ruritania, a small, bucolic German state bordering Saxony. Wodehouse, John Buchan, Marion Davies, Ivor Novello, the Marx Brothers, Peter Ustinov, Dick Van Dyke and Anne Hathaway are just a few of those who at some point have crossed the border into such Ruritanian territories as Samavia, Mervo, Evallonia, Graustark, Krasnia, Freedonia, Concordia, Vulgaria and Genovia.Īnthony Hope had already published novels and short stories, including a tale of mistaken identity set in the fictional principality of Glottenberg, and the plot for Zenda came to him quickly. While there have been many adaptations of Zenda on page, stage and screen, there followed countless ‘Ruritanian’ adventure stories, costume dramas, operettas, stage musicals and films. But its setting, Ruritania, has cast an even longer shadow in popular culture. The resulting book, The Prisoner of Zenda, became a bestseller and has never been out of print since it first appeared a year later in 1894. In November 1893, Anthony Hope Hawkins, then a struggling young barrister, was strolling back from court to his chambers in Middle Temple when he came up with a story about lookalikes set in a fictional pocket kingdom.
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