The Prisoner of Zenda is an 1894 adventure novel by Anthony Hope, in which the King of Ruritania is drugged on the eve of his coronation and thus is unable to attend the ceremony.

These special, condensed novels are intended for English speakers to learn Arabic, by reading side by side versions of these simplified famous novels.Frontispiece to the 1898 Macmillan Publishers edition, illustrated by Charles Dana Gibson In the end, the King is restored to his throne - but the lovers must part. There are complications, plots, and counter-plots, among them the schemes of Michael's mistress Antoinette de Mauban, and those of his villainous henchman Rupert of Hentzau, and Rassendyll falling in love with Princess Flavia, the King's betrothed. The novel seems sympathetic, however, with those who would support the dissolute despot, King Rudolf.When Michael has Rudolf drugged, abducted and imprisoned in the castle in the small town of Zenda, Rassendyll must impersonate the King at the coronation. Michael is regarded as champion of Strelsau's working classes, both the proletariat and the peasants, and of what Hope refers to as the criminal classes. Michael has no legitimate claim to the throne, because he is the son of their father's second, morganatic marriage: there are hints, from his swarthy appearance (he is nicknamed Black Michael) and Rassendyll's elliptically referring to him as a 'mongrel', that he may have Jewish ancestry. The political rival to this absolute monarch is his younger half-brother Michael, Duke and Governor of Strelsau, the capital.

Rudolf Elphberg, the crown prince, is a hard-drinking playboy, unpopular with the common people, but supported by the aristocracy, the Catholic Church, the army, and the rich classes in general. Ruritania is, like Germany and Austria-Hungary at that time, an absolute monarchy. Rudolf Rassendyll, younger brother of the Earl of Burlesdon and (through an ancestor's sexual indiscretion) a distant cousin and look-alike of Rudolf V, the soon-to-be-crowned King of Ruritania, a 'highly interesting and important' Germanic kingdom somewhere imprecisely between the German and Austrian Empires. The narrator is twenty-nine year old the Hon. Well known fiction titles for different interests and levels. Easy reference for individuals not strong in one of the languages. The English and Arabic pages are facing each other, matching one-on-one with English on the left page, Arabic on the right page. Bilingual English-Arabic version of the “Prisoner of Zenda”.ĭual language books.

Anthony hope novel the prisoner of