Jacket lacking. Shaken. Front hinge split. Frontispiece. Pages toned. First American edition (same date on the copyright page). Anthony Hope (Prisoner of Zenda) is the founding author of the Ruritanian Romance sub-genre of regency romance, where all the action takes place in a fictionalized kingdom. Prisoner of Zenda is his best known piece and first in the niche.
King Augustin (of a fictional kingdom) recounts his life - his boyhood coronation, his early affairs and duels, and his eventual marriage to a young girl that he ignores at first, but then is compelled to woo.