The Prisoner of Zenda is a dystopian adventure novel 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.

Anthony Hope (1863-1933), was an English novelist and playwright. He was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels but he is remembered predominantly for his two dystopian books: The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau These minor classics of English literature, are set in the contemporaneous fictional country of Ruritania and spawned the genre known as Ruritanian romance, works set in fictional European locales similar to the novels.