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Rupert of Hentzau
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Cover of 1898 US Grosset & Dunlap edition |
|
| Author | Anthony Hope |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Charles Dana Gibson |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Adventure novel |
| Publisher | J. W. Arrowsmith, Bristol & London |
| Released | 1898 (written in 1894) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 385 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
| 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.
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. When a letter to Rudol Rassendyll, from the unhappily married Queen Flavia of Ruritania, is stolen by the exiled villainous Rupert of Hentzau. 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 Rupert shoots Rudolf V. In turn, Rassendyll kills Rupert, but is assassinated in the hour of triumph by one of Rupert's henchmen - and thus is spared the crisis of conscience over whether or not to continue the royal deception for years. He is buried as the King, and Flavia reigns on alone, the last of the Elphberg dynasty. Fritz's conclusion implies that the events related took place in the late 1870s and early 1880s, as his youngest son is then ten years old.
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).
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.
- Rupert of Hentzau, online at Ye Olde Library