Queen Flavia, dutifully but unhappily married to her cousin Rudolf V, writes to her true love Rudolf Rassendyll. The letter is carried by von Tarlenheim and his servant Bauer to be delivered by hand, but Fritz is betrayed by Bauer and it is stolen by the exiled Rupert of Hentzau and his loyal cousin the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. Hentzau sees in it a chance to return to favor by informing the pathologically jealous and paranoid King.

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.