Phroso: A Romance – Anthony Hope's Adventurous Love Story

by Anthony Hope

"Quot homines tot sententiæ;’ so many men, so many fancies. My fancy was for an island. Perhaps boyhood’s glamour hung yet round sea-girt rocks, and ‘faery lands forlorn,’ still beckoned me; perhaps I felt that London was too full, the Highlands rather fuller, the Swiss mountains most insufferably crowded of them all. Money can buy company, and it can buy retirement. The latter service I asked now of the moderate wealth with which my poor cousin Tom’s death had endowed me. Everybody was good enough to suppose that I rejoiced at Tom’s death, whereas I was particularly sorry for it, and was not consoled even by the prospect of the island." -an excerpt

Genres: Classics, Fiction

196 pages, Kindle Edition

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.

Reviews

[Thomas Murch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a soft spot for the novels of the nineteenth century; the style of narration you see in so many stories of that era have a wit that I think has aged wonderfully, even if other aspects have not. I recently read the stories in Anthony Hope's Ruritania series, and enjoyed them enough that when I saw an advert for Phroso at the back of one of the books, I decided to add that to my reading list. I'm glad that I did - for as much as I enjoyed the 'man who could be king' angle of Hope's more famous stories, I liked Phroso even more.

The tale is a fairly straightforward one. With the date of his marriage set for several months ahead, a young English lord named Charley Wheatley treats himself by purchasing something he has long desired: a Greek island. He promptly goes to visit his new purchase, taking his cousin Denny, his valet Watkins, and Hogvardt (his 'dragoman' - which means 'interpreter', according to my dragoman), and receive a rather cold reception from the natives, who are not thrilled to find their home sold to a stranger. Intrigues that threaten his ownership and his life quickly begin to occupy Wheatley's thoughts, whilst his heart is filled with feelings for Euphrosyne (the daughter of the island's previous owner) that make him question his engagement. Most of the characters lack much depth, with the villains being nefarious and the protagonists being honourable even when it risks getting them all killed, but the prose is so darn fun that I consider the trade worthwhile. To my mind, not enough stories would dare allow a secondary character to answer the question, ‘What’s the ladder here for, my friend?’ with, ‘It enables one to ascend or descend, my lord.’

[Riccardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il romanzo segue il solito schema di Hope: un uomo onesto e coraggioso si ritrova a vivere una grande avventura, affronta nemici e si innamora della giovane fanciulla. secondo me come storia d'avventura non è niente male anche se questa volta, a differenza di "Rupert of Hentzau", il finale è più scontato. Una cosa che mi è piaciuta molto invece è stato il fatto che, dopo aver sconfitto un nemico, ne compare un altro ancora più temibile e la storia continua.