Hope was a barrister who gave up the law after the success of his novel The Prisoner of Zenda. This book begins: Quot homines tot sententiae: so many men, so many fancies. My fancy was for an island. Perhaps boyhood's glamour hung yet round sea-girt rocks, and fairy lands forlorn still beckoned me; perhaps I felt that London was too full, the Highlands rather fuller, the Swiss mountains most insufferably crowded of them all. Money can buy company, and it can buy retirement. The latter service I asked now of the moderate wealth with which my poor cousin Tom's death had endowed me. Everybody was good enough to suppose that I rejoiced at Tom's death, whereas I was particularly sorry for it, and was not consoled even by the prospect of the island. My friends understood this wish for an island as little as they appreciated my feelings about poor Tom.