Rupert of Hentzau

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**Rupert of Hentzau**

Cover to recent paperback edition
Author	Anthony Hope
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Historical, Novel
Publisher	Penguin Classics; New Ed edition (January 1, 2000)
Released	1898 (written in 1894)
Media Type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	400 p. (paperback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-14-043755-X (paperback edition)
Preceded by	The Prisoner of Zenda

Rupert of Hentzau is a sequel by Anthony Hope to The Prisoner of Zenda, written in 1895 but not published until 1898.

[edit] Plot summary

The story, set within a framing narrative by Fritz von Tarlenheim, a supporting character in The Prisoner of Zenda, commences three years after that novel's conclusion. A letter from the unhappily married Queen Flavia of Ruritania to Rudolf Rassendyll is stolen by the villainous Rupert, now an exile. He sees in it a chance to return to favour by informing the pathologically jealous and dissolute King Rudolf V. Rassendyll returns to the kingdom to aid the Queen, but is once more forced to play the King after Rudolf V is shot by Rupert. Fritz's conclusion implies that the events related took place in the late 1870s-early 1880s, as his youngest son is now 10.

Spoilers end here.

The eponymous Rupert of Hentzau first featured as a character in The Prisoner of Zenda. On screen, he has been played by Ramon Novarro (1922), Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (1937), and James Mason (1952).

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Film versions of Rupert of Hentzau itself were made in 1915 and 1923 (with Lew Cody as Rupert), the latter film blunting the tragic ending and turning it on its head (Flavia abdicates to marry Rassendyll, and Ruritania is declared a republic!). A spoof version, Rupert of Hee-Haw, was released in 1924. Stan Laurel plays an alcoholic king, who his queen, Mae Laurel, deposes and replaces him with an identical salesman named Rudolph Razz. Razz's manners are so uncourtly that a courtier, James Finlayson, challenges him to a duel!

David O. Selznick at first considered making a film version of the novel with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as the lead as a follow up of his hugely successful film version of the The Prisoner of Zenda in 1937, but decided not to because of the tragic subject matter and his commitment to filming Gone With The Wind at the time.