An excited audience filled the St James’s Theatre (King Street, London) on the first night following its complete refurbishment. The theatre's new telegraphic address, “Ruritania”, was a tribute to the play that paid for the lavish remodelling: George Alexander’s adaption of The Prisoner of Zenda (January 1896). Other plays staged at St. James’s included Arthur Wing Pinero's The Second Mrs Tanqueray (May 1893) and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (February 1895).

Articles

Nicholas Daly, "Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda (April, 1894) and the Rise of Ruritanian Fiction"

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Renata Kobetts Miller, “The Cultural Work of Drama Criticism in the Early 1890s”