Prisoner of Zenda

So this is my first read-through of Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda (1894).  I've missed all the various movie adaptations as well, so I'm coming at this fresh.  Thirteen chapters in, it's a light-hearted adventure -- an English gentleman, who is distantly related to Ruritanian royalty due to a great-grandmother's weakness for gingers, sneaks off to see the coronation and ends up swapping in for the prince at the last minute.

Excerpts from Chapters 2 and 5 may give a general sense of the tone:

My saucy conductor, looking over her shoulder at me as she preceded me upstairs, said:
“There’s no pleasing Master Johann for one of your colour, sir.”
“He prefers yours, maybe?” I suggested.
“I meant, sir, in a man,” she answered, with a coquettish glance.
“What,” asked I, taking hold of the other side of the candlestick, “does colour matter in a man?”
“Nay, but I love yours—it’s the Elphberg red.”
“Colour in a man,” said I, “is a matter of no more moment than that!”—and I gave her something of no value.

ch. 2

"Perhaps I ought to say that I was dressed all in white, except my boots. I wore a silver helmet with gilt ornaments, and the broad ribbon of the Rose looked well across my chest. I should be paying a poor compliment to the King if I did not set modesty aside and admit that I made a very fine figure." 

ch. 5

As it happens, I've been working my way through Helen Cooper's The English Romance in Time (looking at memes from the medieval romance genre), so this almost dovetails a bit with her view of romance as buttressing claims of succession and usurpers. And of course it's always nice to see a ginger get a starring role!


P.S. Oh, and I just ran into this gem in Chapter 17 (our hero is overhearing a quarrel between the two chief villains):

“Does your Highness threaten me?” asked Rupert.
“A threat is more warning than most men get from me.”
“Yet,” observed Rupert, “Rudolf Rassendyll has been much threatened, and yet lives!”