Claim: Anthony Hope finished the first draft of adventure novel The Prisoner of Zenda in a month and the story was set in the fictional European kingdom of 'Ruritania'.
Evidence: Hope finished the first draft in a month and the book was in print by April. The story is set in the fictional European kingdom of 'Ruritania', a term which has come to mean "the novelist's and dramatist's locale for court romances in a modern setting." The Prisoner of Zenda is an 1894 adventure novel by Anthony Hope.