Reader discussion: The prisoner of Zenda

Public reader discussion about The prisoner of Zenda in the WeRead Catalog by Anthony Hope.

Ruritanian romances

By BraveWonder

So Wikipedia describes “Ruritanian romance” as these swashbuckling adventure stories in a made-up European country (usually Central/Eastern Europe vibes), with lots of royalty/aristocracy drama—honor, loyalty, love, and often the whole “restore the rightful government after someone usurps it” kind of plot. The one I know best is *The Prisoner of Zenda*—a British guy traveling ends up looking just like the new king in Ruritania, and then there’s a conspiracy, danger, and he gets stuck playing some kind of decoy. Pretty wild stuff. I’ve also read *Long Live the King* (Mary Roberts Rinehart), which is less famous but I liked it. It’s set in Livonia, where the old king is about to die, and revolutionaries want to remove the grandson/heir (who’s a kid). It feels a bit more thoughtful than *Prisoner of Zenda*, though there’s still plenty of excitement. And *The Princess Bride* kind of nods to the whole genre too, with Florin and that parody/homage energy. Plus I’m sure there are other secondary-world fantasies that borrow the vibe. Have you read any books like this?

What classics should I read if I like the stories of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror?

By greenMeadow1994

These are the only two “classics” I’ve actually liked so far, but I still haven’t read either of them all the way through. I’ve only skimmed excerpts online and I’m just waiting for a moment when I can buy the actual physical books. I ended up finding them through the musicals first, and I loved the songs a ton. I’m planning to see The Count of Monte Cristo musical this autumn/winter, and I’m also waiting for the Jekyll and Hyde show to come back in my country. I used to get dragged into reading a bunch of classics for school, and that honestly made me think I didn’t like them at all. Turns out I was wrong. Now I’m wondering what I should pick up next alongside these two. Also, quick warning: I’m really picky. Like, I can tell The Picture of Dorian Gray is probably good, but I hate it so much I don’t ever want to read it again. Being forced to read it when I was too young to even get what was going on kind of ruined it for me.

Similarities between black butler and the prisoner of Zenda

By Honest_Weather

Spoiler warning for Black Butler + Prisoner of Zenda. Okay, I’m super excited for Chapter 129, and I’m really hoping it actually supports the whole Twin Ciel idea. And then I got stuck on something: the way Ciel and Lizzy are connected feels kind of like the setup in The Prisoner of Zenda. That book is from 1894, and I know Yana loves pulling from older history/lit (the whole Conan Doyle/Jack the Ripper thing, and other random period stuff). In Zenda, Rudolf Rassendyll shows up in Ruritania right around the coronation and finds out he looks exactly like the king. The king ends up getting sick after some stuff with Black Michael, so Rudolf has to step in and pretend to be the monarch while the real king gets kidnapped. While all that’s going on, Rudolf ends up falling for Princess Flavia (who’s basically the king’s cousin—same kind of role Lizzy has with Ciel). Flavia can tell something’s off with the guy pretending to be “Rudolf,” but she doesn’t know there’s another real person underneath it. I know that’s a spoiler I’m not going to get into, but the parallels made me pause. It would track better if Angelina/Frances/Lizzy didn’t notice that eyepatch-Ciel wasn’t truly Ciel—like in Zenda, since the other twin existence isn’t known to Flavia. But eyepatch-Ciel has memories of his relatives, so he definitely grew up around them. Anyway, what do you all think?

Favourite LibriVox narrators / audiobook performances of the classics?

By smallSparrow6827

I know this sounds a little late, but it took me like 10 years to switch from “audiobooks are just a decent stand-in” to “wait, they actually make it easier to read a bunch of classics I’d never been able to get into before.” Like, I couldn’t really get into Pride and Prejudice at all. I sometimes miss the humor and that social irony that the whole book kind of runs on. But Karen Savage’s version finally made Austen click for me. I burned through all her Jane Austen audiobooks in under two weeks. So now I’m curious—who else has great audiobook performances of classics? Also, does anyone have favorite LibriVox narrators? P.S. I’ve seen this kind of question pop up here and there, so I’m also putting together a bigger list of recs from earlier discussions, too.

For anyone whose special interest is books

By bottle

Have you ever tried to make yourself read less on purpose? I’ve always loved reading, but for me it’s also kind of my go-to way of coping. Since I was a kid, it’s been how I shut off when things feel too much—like stress relief, calming down from overstimulation, escaping without anyone calling it out, all dressed up as a normal hobby. I guess it’s part of how I “mask” day to day. And the weird thing is, I’ve been in a few book groups and I always feel this off version of imposter syndrome. People are hyped because they read like ten or twenty books a year or they finally tackled their first Russian novel, and I’m sitting there thinking…yeah, I read that Russian novel for the first time when I was 16, and I’ve read a ton more than that every year. I get embarrassed and I don’t bring up my numbers because I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging or trying to one-up anyone, but I also don’t know how to talk about it without feeling like a total outlier. Lately I’m wondering if I should be concerned though—like am I accidentally neglecting other parts of my life? My husband says no, and I’m still cooking, cleaning, and handling the kids (I’m a SAHM right now, but it looked the same when I was working). People always complain they don’t have time to read, and I honestly don’t even force it—it’s just what I do. But now I’m thinking maybe something is off, and I should try to cut back and do other stuff instead? Maybe skip a few nights a week and focus on my hobbies…or is that kind of dumb if reading is the thing that actually helps me cope?

A Librivox User Guide

By cosmos_lantern23956

A lot of the questions I keep seeing here could honestly be answered with one word: - “Where do I find decent audiobooks for free?” Librivox! - “How do I deal with Spotify’s audiobook limits?” Librivox! - “I like using Libby but the waitlists are annoying.” Maybe try Librivox! - “What’s the audiobook version of Project Gutenberg?” Librivox! - “How can I listen to audiobooks offline?” Librivox! - “I want to start recording audiobooks, where do I begin?” Volunteer for Librivox! Librivox is a volunteer project making human-read audiobooks from public domain books. It’s totally free and not piracy. The only weird thing is that it works pretty differently from other audiobook services, so I wanted to share a few tips I’ve picked up over the years. Basically this is about using Librivox well to listen to books you want to read. Using Librivox: - There are three kinds of recordings: solo, dramatic, and collaborative. Solo means one reader the whole way through. Dramatic is full cast. Collaborative means several readers split up the sections. One thing I’ve noticed people complain about is starting a collaborative book without realizing the voice will change later, then getting annoyed. That’s easy enough to avoid if you filter them out. (More on collaborative stuff later.) - Volunteers like making little collections of short stories, poems, excerpts, and stuff like that. They’re pretty easy to spot, but if you click around on an author or reader page, they’ll show up a lot. These are kind of a way for people to try reading and to read things they don’t want to commit to fully. If that bugs you, just scroll past. Those are collaborative too, so filtering those out helps. How to actually listen: - There are lots of ways, but there isn’t an official Librivox app. The files live on Archive.org. You can grab the mp3s from Archive.org or the Librivox site and keep them on your device, so you can listen without internet. They’re also on YouTube, and some are uploaded as podcasts you might find in a podcast app. A few are on Project Gutenberg too if you search audio. There are unofficial apps as well. I pay $2.49 a year to remove ads in the unofficial Librivox Audiobooks app. - For recommendations, you can look through Reddit threads, blogs, best-of lists, and so on. I also like checking the “Thank a Reader” section of the forum to see what people enjoyed. You can also look at their most downloaded titles. There was also a Staff Picks blog from 2008 to 2023 that got updated monthly from community suggestions. Some recommendation threads: - Best of Librivox - Favorite Librivox Books? - [Librivox] Your favorite ever book + narrator combinations? (A bunch of people in that one mixed up Libby and Librivox, so don’t go hunting for Joe Abercrombie there) - Librivox - Best Books on Librivox? - Anyone have certain Librivox readers that are especially good? My own book picks: - Moby Dick by Herman Melville read by Stewart Wills. Honestly one of the best narrations for me. - Fine Clothes to the Jew by Langston Hughes read by Dar’Keith Loughton. His character voices are seriously great. - Film of Fear by Frederick Arnold Kummer (dramatic read). If you like mysteries, this one is insanely fun. It’s so odd I probably would’ve dropped it without the audiobook keeping me going. My reader picks: - Elizabeth Klett started on Librivox and is now a professional narrator. Her Austen recordings are really good. - Ruth Golding reads Sherlock Holmes and other stuff with a Welsh accent. So good. - Andy Minter did an amazing Scrooge in the dramatic Christmas Carol I listened to, plus a really fun Prisoner of Zenda. - Mark Nelson has a huge catalog and is also a pro narrator. - Karen Shallenberg has done a lot of great ones, including The Great Gatsby. - Karen Savage is another Librivox legend. I especially recommend her L. M. Montgomery readings. Feel free to add more recommendations below. I’ll keep adding them. Common complaints I keep hearing about Librivox: This is where I get a little more honest. These are just my opinions. Here we go. “But Librivox doesn’t have anything I want. It’s all old books.” I mean, I get that. I’m not trying to tell anyone not to read Dungeon Crawler Carl, even though I didn’t love it. And if you only want newer romance, recent sci-fi, or the latest big bestsellers, the public domain probably won’t feel that exciting. If you want books with zero misogyny or casual racism, the public domain may also not be your place. But... - Classics are classics for a reason a lot of the time. Not every book works for everyone, but a bunch of these still hit hard. - Reading outside your usual experience is good for your brain, including weird old people books. People have been people forever, and that’s kind of nice to remember. - It’s weirdly comforting to see how familiar a lot of these current times are. Want plagues, social unrest, bad rulers, civil rights being stomped on, all that? THE PUBLIC DOMAIN HAS YOU COVERED! - As of now, anything published before January 1, 1930 in the U.S. is in the public domain for U.S. readers, assuming the copyright wasn’t renewed. The 1920s and earlier had a lot of diverse writers with wild ideas about the future. There’s a lot there from the Harlem Renaissance especially, from Langston Hughes to Nella Larsen to Richard Wright. - How you read is up to you. I don’t think most people would call Moby Dick an antiracist queer text or whatever, but I was still surprised when Queequeg and Ishmael basically get MARRIED in chapter 10 while sharing a bed and a smoke. And a lot of the competent sailors on the Pequod are people of color, while the white boss is the one wrecking everybody’s lives because he’s mad at a whale. - There are probably books in your favorite genres that you just haven’t thought to look for. Sci-fi people tend to like H. Beam Piper, and there are 24 of his books on Librivox. Princess of Mars is there too. If you like fantasy, maybe try Lud-in-the-Mist from 1926 or some E. Nesbit. “But the readers aren’t as good as professionals!” Yeah, well, some of your favorite readers probably started there. But also, yes, they’re volunteers. A lot of them are retired, learning English, or kids who are way too confident. Another thing I’ve noticed: you can’t make every reading work for every person. Some people want something calm to fall asleep to, with not much expression. Others need a lot of emotion to stay focused. What one person finds boring or annoying, another person loves. It’s free. Nobody is scamming you if the only thing you lose is time, and even that still teaches you something. Just pick something else and move on. “I hate when the reader changes halfway through.” Honestly, skill issue. I actually like collaborative reads because they feel kind of unique. If you really can’t stand a reader, you can just read that chapter on Project Gutenberg and skip ahead. I kind of love that one chapter it’s a weird Russian guy talking about whales, then a theater person, then some retiree from Wales. Also, if you spend any time on the Librivox forum, you’ll see collaborative books can get finished in days or weeks, while solo ones take way longer. And if someone starts a solo recording but can’t finish it for some reason, it turns into collaborative by default. “Old books are full of casual racism, religious propaganda, and bad information!” Yeah, I know. But I’ve got bad news about books being published right now too. I’ve backed out of some books I probably would’ve liked because of the language used for people of color. And the misinformation is definitely real too — like A Book of Whales from 1900 is full of stuff that isn’t exactly true about whales. There’s also a lot of weird Christian material in the catalog. I actually think running into that stuff is useful for building critical reading skills. You don’t have to agree with everything you read, and you shouldn’t. Being able to read something and go, “wow, that’s messed up,” is a pretty useful skill, and this helps me practice it. Anyway... Listening to Librivox has genuinely made me a better, more compassionate person, and it’s pushed me to read way more widely than I used to. It’s my first stop for classics now, and I’ve found a ton of weird books I never would’ve tried otherwise. Have you tried Librivox? Got a favorite book or reader?

Why is Central/Eastern Europe often portrayed as a “spooky” region of Europe in art and media? Is it just because of Dracula? Bohemia, Hungary, Romania especially, etc are used this way a lot.

By window_verse

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The Prisoner of Zenda

By cafeatom

Been a minute since I picked this one up, but I still think it’s a really fun adventure story. The whole thing follows Rudolf V, right before he’s supposed to get crowned as king of Ruritania, and of course he ends up getting totally out of it after some kind of drugged celebration drinks. By the time coronation day rolls around, he’s not in any condition to go. Then the king’s loyal people notice that Rudolf Rassendyll, an English guy who was partying with them, looks way too much like Rudolf V. So they basically stash Rudolf away and have Rassendyll step in to impersonate him so the coronation doesn’t get messed up. But when they come back to switch things over, they find that Rudolf is gone. Now it’s a scramble to track him down before anyone realizes what’s actually happening. I know the setup sounds kind of over-the-top, but I still really like it. There’s suspense, some solid action, and even a love story mixed in. There are a few movie versions, but I’d say read the book first if you can. If you’ve read it, did you like it?