The story gives a fair account of the power, or lack of power, of the vast majority of women at the time in which it is set and, in the great Miss Driver herself, demonstrates how wealth and no husband were the one recipe for a woman to have control of her own life. Finally, it shows how a decent man could love such a woman and be, if not her lover, her loving friend. (Goodreads)
Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, better known as Anthony Hope (9 February 1863 – 8 July 1933), was an English novelist and playwright. He was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels but he is remembered predominantly for only two books: The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau (1898). These works, "minor classics" of English literature, are set in the contemporaneous fictional country of Ruritania and spawned the genre known as Ruritanian romance, works set in fictional European locales similar to the novels. Zenda has inspired many adaptations, most notably the 1937 Hollywood movie of the same name. (Wikipedia)