Rudolf Rassendyll-an indifferent young man who enjoyed his leisure well. The Prisoner of Zenda is quite simply irresistible, making it a balm for this dour day and age, and worthy of its reputation for being the finest adventure story ever written, in which the struggle between good and evil is a great game and nothing seems so serious as keeping the serious at bay. Even the gravest of cynics must smile, chuckle, and inch to the edge of his seat in appreciation of men bristling with weapons, women swooning in their lovers’ arms, guns firing and combatants laughing, swords flashing and soldiers of fortune. It is a fairy tale infused with the optimism of escapism, the thrill of romance, and the charm of the dashing, debonair, gentleman hero.

This “spirited and gallant little book,” as Robert Louis Stevenson described it, is a remedy to the heavy seriousness of cynicism because it is lighthearted.

The Prisoner of Zenda, written in 1894 by Anthony Hope, is one of these. These books remind men of the glory and grandeur of man and the glories and grandeurs that give meaning to mankind. There are in existence a few books that can cure the sickness of cynicism. There remains, however, an escape authored by Hope. What hope can be had for the human condition when human behavior is the Alpha and the Omega and also thought-even scientifically-as driven by nothing more than self-interest and self-indulgence? When imperfection is all there is, what more than gloom, mistrust, disparagement, or even despair can be expected? This is the plague of youth, the emasculation of men, the ruin of women, the death of Christian culture, and the prison of cynicism, where, in the words of Oscar Wilde, people know the price of everything but the value of nothing. When cynical men lose faith in man, they cannot retain faith in anything higher than mankind, which leaves a pretty poor playing field. This attitude degenerates into a psychosis that questions man’s sincerity of motive or his rectitude of conduct. Man is naturally imperfect, and thus it is natural that purely anthropological philosophies are suspicious-even contemptuous-of any kind of idealism. In a godless world where men tend to hedge their bets on man before anything else, it is not surprising that many experience existential letdowns.

The prisoner of zenda by anthony hope