A playful, self-reflexive tale of politics and ethics.In Prince Otto, first published in serial form in 1885, Stevenson uses his genius for adventure and romance to explore some decidedly grown-up themes. The tiny nineteenth-century German state of Gruenewald seems to be a principality of the world of fairy-tale. But its ruler is beset in public by the forces of modern politics, and troubled in private by an unhappy marriage. Ill-prepared to deal with either, Otto is forced to choose between them.