Anthony Hope - Six of the Best

By Anthony Hope

Six has always been a number we group things around – Six of the best, six of one half a dozen of another, six feet under, six pack, six degrees of separation and a sixth sense are but a few of the ways we use this number.

Such is its popularity that we thought it is also a very good way of challenging and investigating an author’s work to give width, brevity, humour and depth across six of their very best.

In this series we gather together authors whose short stories both rivet the attention and inspire the imagination to visit their gems in a series of six, to roam across an author’s legacy in a few short hours and gain a greater understanding of their writing and, of course, to be lavishly entertained by their ideas, their narrative and their way with words.

These stories can be surprising and sometimes at a tangent to what we expected, but each is fully formed and a marvellous adventure into the world and words of a literary master.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Six of the Best
• Release date: Dec 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781835473085

Anthony Hope

Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins was born in 1863 and, after taking a degree at Oxford University, was called to the bar in 1887. He initially combined a successful career as a barrister with writing but the immediate success of his tenth book, The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), allowed him to become a full-time writer. The novel spawned a new genre – Ruritanian romance – and has been adapted numerous times for film, television and stage. In all, Hope wrote thirty-two works of fiction and an autobiography. At the close of the First World War he was knighted for his contribution to propaganda work. Hope died in 1933.

Book preview

Six of the Best by Anthony Hope

Six has always been a number we group things around – Six of the best, six of one half a dozen of another, six feet under, six pack, six degrees of separation and a sixth sense are but a few of the ways we use this number.

Such is its popularity that we thought it is also a very good way of challenging and investigating an author’s work to give width, brevity, humour and depth across six of their very best.

In this series we gather together authors whose short stories both rivet the attention and inspire the imagination to visit their gems in a series of six, to roam across an author’s legacy in a few short hours and gain a greater understanding of their writing and, of course, to be lavishly entertained by their ideas, their narrative and their way with words.

These stories can be surprising and sometimes at a tangent to what we expected, but each is fully formed and a marvellous adventure into the world and words of a literary master. 

Index of Contents

Anthony Hope - An Introduction

My Astral Body

Foreordained

Middleton's Model

A Successful Rehearsal

A Little Joke

How They Stopped the 'Run'

SIX OF THE BEST

Anthony Hope - An Introduction

Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins was born on the 9th February 1863 in Clapton, London.

He was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead, Marlborough College and Balliol College, Oxford.  Hope trained as a lawyer and barrister and was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1887.  Despite what was thought to be a promising legal career he had literary ambitions and wrote in his spare time.

His early works appeared in various periodicals of the day but for his first book ‘A Man of Mark’ (1890), with no publisher interested, he published with his own resources.

More novels and short stories followed, including the mildly successful ‘Mr Witt's Widow’ in 1892.  Hope even found time to run as the Liberal candidate for Wycombe in the election that same year but was unsuccessful.

His first major literary success came with ‘The Dolly Dialogues’, a collection of previously published magazine pieces followed very quickly by his instant classic, ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’.  He now gave up the vestiges of his legal career to pursue writing full-time.

Despite never again reaching the same pinnacle of success he was popular and wrote prolifically across novels, plays and of course, short stories though his writing output rapidly diminished after the war.

In 1918 he was knighted for his contribution to propaganda efforts during World War I.

His short stories are delicate, mannered and often surprising with their wit, humour and interplay of characters who say one thing and usually mean another.  He was very definitely a writer of escapist rather than serious fare but they are no less enjoyable for that.

Anthony Hope died of throat cancer on 8th July 1933 at his country home, Heath Farm at Walton-on-the-Hill in Surrey.  He was 70.

My Astral Body

There’s no doubt at all about it," said the rajah, relighting his cigar.

It’s perfectly easy, if you know how to do it. The skepticism of the West is nothing less than disgusting.

The rajah had come to Oxford to complete his education and endue himself with the culture of Europe; and he sat in my rooms, in a frock-coat of perfect cut (he always wore a frock-coat), smoking one of my weeds and drinking a whisky-and-soda. The rajah took to European culture with avidity, and I have very little doubt that he learned many new things with which it