Educated at Marlborough and at Balliol College, Oxford, he became a lawyer in 1887. The immediate success of The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), his sixth novel—and its sequel, Rupert of Hentzau (1898)—turned him entirely to writing. These novels describe the perilous adventures of the Englishman Rudolph Rassendyll in the mythical kingdom of Ruritania. Hope's other works include the high-society conversations The Dolly Dialogues (1894) and a series of problem novels, such as The God in the Car (1894), which was based on the career of Cecil Rhodes. In 1918 he was knighted for war work. He published his reminiscences as Memoirs and Notes (1927).