The Princess Bride (novel)

For the film, see The Princess Bride (film). For other uses, see Princess Bride.

The Princess Bride

This is the slipcase cover of the deluxe first edition of The Princess Bride. The regular hardcover version had the same image and colors, except for the brown border which is the fabric that surrounds the cardboard of the case. The first edition features red text for the abridgement notes, as does the first mass-market paperback edition (Ballantine, 1974); later paperbacks used italics instead, with the sentence "All abridging remarks and other comments will be in red so you'll know" correspondingly altered.
Author	William Goldman
Language	English
Genre	Fantasy novel
Publisher	Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (USA)
Publication date	1973
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	493 pp
ISBN	0-345-41826-3

The Princess Bride is a 1973 novel written by William Goldman. It was originally published in the United States by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

The book combines elements of comedy, adventure, romance and fairy tale. It is presented as if it were an abridgment of a work by S. Morgenstern, and Goldman's 'commentary' asides are constant throughout.

It was made into a film of the same name in 1987 by Rob Reiner, and an attempt to adapt it into a musical was made by Adam Guettel.

Plot summary

In a Renaissance-era fairy-tale world, a beautiful woman named Buttercup lives on a farm in the fictional country of Florin. She delights in verbally abusing the farm hand Westley by demanding that he perform chores for her. Westley's only answer is "As you wish", which represents his great affection for her. After Buttercup realizes the true meaning of the words, as well as the fact that she returns his love, Westley leaves to seek his fortune so they can marry. Buttercup later receives word that his ship was attacked at sea by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who is notorious for killing all those whose vessels he boards. Believing Westley to be dead, Buttercup is forcefully engaged to marry Prince Humperdinck, the heir to the throne of Florin.

Before the wedding, Buttercup is kidnapped by a trio of outlaws: the Sicilian criminal genius Vizzini, the Spanish fencing master Inigo Montoya, and the enormous and mighty Turkish wrestler Fezzik. A masked man in black follows them across the sea and up the Cliffs of Insanity, whereupon Vizzini orders Inigo to stop him. Inigo arranges a fair fight, allowing his opponent to rest before the duel, during which Inigo reveals that he is seeking revenge on a six-fingered man who killed his father. The man in black wins their duel, but leaves the Spaniard alive. Vizzini, stunned, orders Fezzik to kill him. Fezzik, moved by his conscience, throws a rock as a warning, and challenges the man to a wrestling match. The man then chokes Fezzik until the giant blacks out, and then catches up with Vizzini, and proposes a battle of wits. Vizzini is tricked into drinking poison and dies.

With Prince Humperdinck's rescue party in hot pursuit, the man flees with Buttercup, and reveals that he is the Dread Pirate Roberts, Westley's murderer. Enraged, she shoves him into a gorge, yelling "You can die, too, for all I care!" only to hear him call, "As you wish!" while he is falling. She realizes at this point that he is Westley, who tells her that the Dread Pirate Roberts did attack his ship, but kept Westley alive after Westley explained the depths of his love for Buttercup. Westley became the Dread Pirate Robert's apprentice, learning to sail, fence, and fight. Eventually, Roberts secretly passed his name, captaincy, and ship to Westley. Westley and Buttercup travel through the feared Fire Swamp to evade Humperdinck's party, but upon exiting, they are captured by Humperdinck and his menacing six-fingered assistant, Count Tyrone Rugen. Buttercup negotiates for Westley's release and returns with Humperdinck to the palace to await their wedding. Rugen, who has no intention of releasing Westley, instead takes him to the underground hunting arena called the 'Zoo of Death', where he is tortured so as to provide information by which to complete the Count's book on pain.

Meanwhile, Buttercup has several nightmares regarding her marriage to the prince. She expresses her unhappiness to Humperdinck, who proposes a deal wherein he will send out four ships to locate Westley, but if they fail to find him, Buttercup will marry him. Humperdinck reveals to his accomplices that, although he arranged Buttercup's kidnapping in order to start a war with the neighboring country of Guilder, it will be better propaganda if she dies on her wedding night.

On the day of the wedding, Inigo meets with Fezzik, who tells him that Count Rugen is the killer of Inigo's father. They seek out the man in black, hoping that his wits will help them overcome the guards. Buttercup learns that Humperdinck never sent any ships, and taunts him with her enduring love for Westley. Enraged, Humperdinck tortures Westley to death. Westley's screams draw Inigo and Fezzik to the scene; upon finding Westley's body, they enlist the help of the King of Florin's former "miracle man", a magician named Miracle Max. Max pronounces Westley to be merely "mostly dead" and resurrects him, although Westley remains partially paralyzed.

Westley devises a successful plan to invade the castle during the wedding; the resulting commotion prompts Humperdinck to cut the wedding short. Buttercup decides to commit suicide when she reaches the honeymoon suite. Inigo pursues Rugen through the castle and kills him in a sword fight, reciting throughout the duel his long-rehearsed oath of vengeance. Westley reaches Buttercup before she commits suicide and assures her that she is not yet married as the ceremony has not been completed. Still partly paralyzed, he bluffs his way out of a sword fight with Humperdinck. Instead of killing his rival, Westley decides to leave him alone with his cowardice. The party rides off into the sunset on white horses conveniently discovered by Fezzik. They are pursued by Humperdinck's men, and their fate remains unknown.

Context

The Princess Bride is presented as Goldman's abridgment of an older version by "S. Morgenstern", which was originally a satire of the excesses of European royalty. The book, in fact, is entirely Goldman's work. Morgenstern and the "original version" are fictional and used as a literary device.

Goldman carried the joke further by publishing another book called The Silent Gondoliers (explaining why the gondoliers of Venice no longer sing to their passengers) under S. Morgenstern's name.

Goldman's personal life, as described in the introduction and commentary in the novel, is also fictional. In The Princess Bride, Goldman claims to have one son with his wife, a psychiatrist. In reality, Goldman has two daughters, and his wife is not a psychiatrist. The commentary is extensive, continuing through the text until the very end.

The book's actual roots are in stories Goldman would tell to his daughters, one of whom had requested a story about "princesses" and the other "brides". Goldman describes the earliest character names from the "kid's saga" as "silly names: Buttercup, Humperdinck". The countries are both named after coins: the florin, originally a silver coin minted in Florence, and the Dutch guilder, also known as florin.

The device of claiming that a book is a pre-existing work that the author merely discovered and edited has been used by authors as diverse as Horace Walpole, Miguel de Cervantes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Umberto Eco, Alessandro Manzoni, Jan Potocki, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Søren Kierkegaard; British fantasy authors Mary Gentle, J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings), and C.S. Lewis (Space Trilogy, The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia); Alison Croggon; George MacDonald Fraser; L. Frank Baum; Laurie King (The Mary Russell Mysteries); science fiction author Michael Crichton (Eaters of the Dead); zoologist Gerolf Steiner (The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades); cartoonist Scott Adams (Dilbert); musicologist Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach); and author Mark Z. Danielewski (House of Leaves). Some employers of this device admit to it, but claim that their act of writing the work constituted "discovering" a story or truth which already existed within the collective unconscious or some similar "pool of knowledge".

Reunion scene

In the novel's commentary, Goldman writes that he added nothing to the "original" Morgenstern text, although he comments that he did write one original scene, a loving reunion between Buttercup and Westley, but claimed that his publisher objected to this addition. He invited any reader who wanted to read the "Reunion Scene" to write to the publisher (formerly Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; now Random House) and request a copy. Many readers wrote in to the publisher and did receive a letter, but instead of an extra scene, the letter detailed the (obviously fictitious) legal problems that Goldman and his publishers encountered with the Morgenstern estate and its lawyer, Kermit Shog. This letter was revised and updated periodically; the 1987 revision mentioned the movie, while the 25th Anniversary Edition publishes the letter with an addendum about Kermit's lawyer granddaughter Carly. The 30th Anniversary Edition has a footnote at this point saying that you can now find the three pages of the reunion scene online. However, if one goes to the website detailed in the footnote, all they receive via email is the text of the three letters. In the end Fezzick lost a fight, Westley was to scared to go to sleep at night fearing that prince humperdink was on their trail, Buttercup became ugly, and ingo got his ass whooped by a little kid in a sword fight THE END (this is the true ending no lie).

Buttercup's Baby

The epilogue to some later editions of the novel, notably the 25th anniversary edition, mentions a sequel, Buttercup's Baby, that was having trouble getting published because of legal difficulties with S. Morgenstern's estate. This sequel seems to be just as fictional as S. Morgenstern's unabridged edition, though later editions actually reprint Goldman's "sample chapter"

The chapter consists of a disjointed assemblage of stories about the quartet's escape to 'One Tree Island', and the eventual kidnapping of Waverly, Westley and Buttercup's daughter, by a skinless-faced 'madman' who eventually throws her off a mountainside. The chapter ends with Fezzik, Waverly's appointed babysitter, leaping off the mountain to save her, and then cradling her to preserve her from the impact that seems certain to spell at least Fezzik's doom. Also noteworthy is a flashback to Inigo's past, his training as a swordsman, and his one-time romantic love interest.

The 30th anniversary edition of The Princess Bride included hints to the sequel's plot, and a promise to have the full version completed before a 35th anniversary edition (2009).

In a January 2007 interview, Goldman admitted that he is having difficulty coming up with ideas for the story:

MPM: I hear you're working on a sequel to The Princess Bride called Buttercup's Baby.

William Goldman: I desperately want to write it, and I sit there and nothing happens and I get pissed at myself. I got lucky with The Princess Bride the first time, and I'd love to get lucky again.

Musical

Goldman partnered with Adam Guettel to create a musical version of the story with Goldman writing the book and Guettel writing the music but the two parted ways on the project when they could not agree to the division of the creative royalties. Guettel's score was nearly complete, but it is unlikely that it will be heard beyond an orchestral suite that was performed at the Hollywood Bowl in 2006.

Games

In 2008 Toy Vault Inc. announced they were working on a Princess Bride-based card game due for release in the 2nd quarter of 2008. They also announced that they are working on a board game, the first ever produced for this movie.

Also in 2008, the production company Worldwide Biggies released a computer game, The Princess Bride Game. Several actors from the movie provided voices for their video game counterparts, including Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya, Wallace Shawn as Vizzini, and Robin Wright Penn as Buttercup.

See also

• The Princess Bride (film)
• Ruritanian romance

External links

• The Princess Bride, 30th Anniversary Edition at Google Book Search
• The Princess Bride (1987) at IMDb at the Internet Movie Database
• The Princess Bride book site - which gives one the choice to have the reunion scene sent to one's email.
• Reconstructivist Art: The Princess Bride
• The Princess Bride Downloadable Game
• Toy Vault's Princess Bride Card Game