Simon Dale

by Anthony Hope

England, 1647: a wise woman has predicted the birth of Simon Dale, to the very day and district. But if the rest of her ominous forecast is accurate, how can this ordinary child be predestined to love where the King loved, know what the King hid, and drink of the King's cup? For the young man, Simon Dale, only one course of action can be not to seek his own path, but to leave himself in the hands of Fate. This brilliant novel charts an absorbing period in history and the tumultuous life of an ordinary man in noble surrounds.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1897

About the author

Prolific English novelist and playwright Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins especially composed adventure. People remember him best only for the book The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau (1898). These works, "minor classics" of English literature, set in the contemporaneous fictional country of Ruritania, spawned the genre, known as Ruritanian romance. Zenda inspired many adaptations, most notably the Hollywood movie of 1937 of the same name.