Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, better known as Anthony Hope, was an English novelist and playwright. He was born on 9^th February 1863 at Clapton House, Clapton, London, the third and youngest child of the Revd Edwards Comerford Hawkins, headmaster of St John's Foundation School for the Sons of Poor Clergy, and Jane Isabella Grahame, daughter of Archibald Grahame of Brighton and aunt of the author Kenneth Grahame.  Although he was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels, Hope is remembered best for only two books: The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau (1898). Zenda has inspired many adaptations, the most acclaimed was the 1937 adaptation starring Ronald Coleman, Douglas Fairbanks junior, and Madeleine Carroll.

Hope was educated by his father and then attended Marlborough College, where he was editor of The Marlburian. He won a scholarship to Balliol College at Oxford University in 1881. Before graduating in 1886, he played football for his college, took a first-class degree in Classics, and was one of the rare Liberal presidents of the Oxford Union, becoming known as a good speaker.

Hope trained as a lawyer and barrister, being called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1887. He lived with his widowed father, then vicar of St Bride's Church, Fleet Street. During these first years, he had time to write as his working day was not overly full.  

On 28 November 1893 Hawkins's career choice was made for him when he was struck by the sight of two men of very similar appearance on his walk back to the Temple. The Prisoner of Zenda, set in the fictional kingdom of Ruritania, and a story of court intrigue and romance, unrolled itself before him and he began it the next morning and finished it rapidly. It was published in April 1894 and enjoyed almost immediate success and popularity. The popularity of Zenda convinced Hope to give up his legal career to become a full-time writer, but he never again achieved the same level of success as he did with this novel.

Hope considered his novel, The King's Mirror (1899), to be one of his best works. Hope wrote or co-wrote many plays and some political non-fiction during the First World War, some under the auspices of the Ministry of Information.

Hope wrote 32 volumes of fiction over the course of his lifetime, and he had a large popular following. He went on a publicity tour of the United States in late 1897, during which he impressed a New York Times reporter as being somewhat like Rudolf Rassendyll. On the return journey from his second tour of America, Hawkins met Elizabeth Somerville, daughter of Charles Henry Sheldon, of New York. They were married soon after, on 1 July 1903, and had two sons and a daughter. They lived thereafter at 41 Bedford Square, London, but, warned by ill health, Hawkins rented and subsequently bought Heath Farm, Walton on the Hill, Surrey.

Hope was knighted in 1918 for his contribution to propaganda efforts during World War I. He published an autobiographical book, Memories and Notes, in 1927. He died of throat cancer at the age of 70 at his country home.