Rupert shares most of Rudolf’s manly attributes, but turns them to wickedness rather than good. Ronald Colman as Rudolf and Raymond J Massey as Black Michael in the 1937 film.Īlthough Black Michael is the chief baddie in terms of the plot, it’s his henchman Rupert of Hentzau who becomes Rudolf’s main adversary. The King is a weak drunkard and Black Michael is a hissable villain, so that the reader can only agree with the growing number of Ruritarians who begin to think that the impostor is an improvement over the real royals. But he lets us see his internal struggle to do the right thing, which stops him from becoming insufferable.

A great swordsman, a flawless linguist, a natural leader of men, and an irresistible wooer of women, Rudolf is also a man who puts honour above his own desires, even when faced by overwhelming temptation. And it’s great fun! Rudolf tells us the story himself, and it reminded me very much in style of John Carter in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom books, where the first person narrator self-deprecatingly repeats the many compliments bestowed upon him by everyone he meets, so that we know he’s wonderful in every way without him having to tell us so directly. Short novel or long novella, this is a swashbuckling adventure full of drama, sword fights, high romance and chivalric honour. But when the King is then kidnapped, suddenly Rudolf finds the impersonation will have to go on until the King is free… So when King Rudolf is incapacitated before his coronation, our Rudolf steps in to take his place in order to prevent the King’s jealous half-brother, Black Michael (so called because he hasn’t inherited the red hair), from carrying out a coup and stealing not just the throne but the beautiful Princess Flavia, destined to be the wife of the King. When he gets there he discovers that everyone is startled by his appearance – he doesn’t simply resemble the King, they are almost identical.

Rudolf is one of these red-haired Rassendylls and, being a young man with a plentiful inheritance and time on his hands, he decides he will visit Ruritania to witness the coronation of the new young King, another Rudolf. Every now and then a Rassendyll is born with the red hair and long nose common to the Ruritarian Kings. Owing to the indiscretion of an ancestor, the Rassendyll family shares heredity with the ruling family of the small Germanic nation of Ruritania.

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