Anthony Hope

Frivolous Cupid Anthony Hope

HAWKINS, SIR ANTHONY HOPE (1863-1933), barrister and author, who gave up the law after the success of "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1894). A sequel, "Rupert of Hentzau," followed in 1898. The story is set in the fictional European kingdom of 'Ruritania', a term which has come to mean 'the novelist's and dramatist's locale for court romances in a modern setting. Hawkins also published several other novels and plays, and "The Dolly Dialogues" (1894), reprinted from the Westminster Gazette, which is a series of light hearted conversations featuring a flirtation between Samuel Carter, a bachelor, and Dolly Foster, who in ch. 5 marries Lord Mickleham. Hope wrote and co-wrote many plays and political non-fiction during the First World War, some under the auspices of the Ministry of Information. Later publications included The Secret of the Tower, and Beaumaroy Home from the Wars, in 1919 and Lucinda in 1920.