Anthony Hope (1863–1933,) pseudonym of Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, was an English novelist of cloak-and-sword romances, notably The Prisoner of Zenda.
Born the son of a clergyman in Clapton, East London, Hope was educated at Marlborough and Balliol College, Oxford. He was called to the Bar in 1887. He wrote several plays and novels in his spare time and made his name as a writer with a collection of sketches, The Dolly Dialogues (1894.)
Hope is chiefly remembered for his ‘Ruritanian’ romances, The Prisoner of Zenda (1894; dramatized 1896; Hollywood movie, 1937) and its sequel, Rupert of Hentzau (1898.) These novels describe the perilous adventures of the Englishman Rudolph Rassendyll in the mythical kingdom of Ruritania. These works also spawned the genre known as Ruritanian romance.
Hope’s other works include the series of problem novels, such as The God in the Car (1894,) which was based on the career of Cecil Rhodes, the empire builder of British South Africa and prime minister of the British Cape Colony in present-day South Africa.
Hope’s reminiscences are Memoirs and Notes (1927.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Anthony Hope
Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn’t matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.
—Anthony Hope
Topics: Youth
In the deep, unwritten wisdom of life there are many things to be learned that cannot be taught. We never know them by hearing them spoken, but we grow into them by experience and recognize them through understanding.
—Anthony Hope
Economy is going without something you do want in case you should, some day, want something which you probably won’t want.
—Anthony Hope
Topics: Economy
Unless one is a genius, it is best to aim at being intelligible.
—Anthony Hope
Topics: Intellectuals, Intelligence
Your ignorance cramps my conversation.
—Anthony Hope
Topics: Ignorance
A book might be written on the injustice of the just.
—Anthony Hope
Topics: Books, Reading
You oughtn’t to yield to temptation. Well, somebody must, or the thing becomes absurd.
—Anthony Hope
Topics: Temptation
His foe was folly and his weapon wit.
—Anthony Hope
Topics: Weapon, One liners, Wit
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