The Princess Bride

What's inside (8 sections)

1. The father, the son, and the man who cut the boring parts
2. Buttercup and Westley and the pirate who never lived
3. Vizzini, Inigo, Fezzik and the Cliffs of Insanity
4. The Fire Swamp, the Pit, and the Zoo
5. Storming the castle with a dead man leading
6. What holds up and what creaks
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I picked this one up because I had seen the film a dozen times and a friend kept telling me the book was weirder and funnier. He was right. I expected a straight fairy tale with a few jokes. What I got was a fairy tale wrapped inside a long practical joke about authorship, with a sick kid in bed asking his father to skip the boring parts.

That frame is the whole trick. Goldman pretends he is not really the author. He says the story comes from S. Morgenstern, a great writer from the imaginary country of Florin, and that what we hold is only the good parts version, cut down from a huge windy satire. There never was a Morgenstern. There never was a Florin, though Goldman writes about Florin and its neighbor Guilder the way other writers write about real rival states, with wars, taxes, royal gossip. The joke lets him stop the story whenever he wants to complain, explain, or brag. Sometimes that is a gift. Sometimes you want to tell him to get back to the sword fight.

The edition most people read now is the Harcourt 30th anniversary text with ISBN 9780156035217, which runs about 456 pages in mass market form. The first publication was 1973 from Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. The short title we use, The Princess Bride, is the everyday name. The full list title adds S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. Same book. The longer name is the in joke printed on the cover.

Buttercup starts as the most beautiful woman in the world and, for a while, not much else. That is on purpose, and also part of the problem, which I will get to. She lives on a small farm in Florin. Westley works there as Farm Boy. She bosses him around. Fetch water. Groom the horse. Clean the stable. He always answers with three words.

As you wish.

It takes her a long time to hear what he means. When she finally does, she understands it meant I love you every time. They agree to marry, but Westley is poor, so he sails to America to make money. His ship is taken by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who, as everyone in Florin knows, never takes prisoners. Word comes that Westley is dead. Buttercup decides she will never love again.

Five years pass.

Prince Humperdinck of Florin, a great hunter and a cold man, decides he needs a princess. He picks Buttercup. She does not love him. He does not seem to mind. He plans a wedding and spends his time tracking, training, and building a private Zoo of Death in the cellars. Buttercup spends her time missing Westley and riding her horse every day, which is how she gets kidnapped.

That kidnapping starts the adventure most people know.

The father, the son, and the man who cut the boring parts

You cannot talk about this book without the sickbed.

In Goldman's telling, his father read to him when he was sick as a boy, around age ten, and skipped all the dull Florinese politics to leave only fencing, fighting, torture, poison, true love, hate, revenge, giants, hunters, bad men, good men, beautiful ladies, snakes, spiders, beasts, chases, escapes, lies, truths, passion, miracles. As an adult Goldman says he tried to give the same gift to his own son, Jason, who would rather play games and who finds the old story slow. That stings him, so he writes long asides about Hollywood, about his wife Helen, about being a screenwriter, about wanting to connect with a kid who is growing away.

Some readers adore this layer. I mostly did. It makes the book feel told aloud, not printed. A father stops and says, trust me, this next part is great. A son groans. You remember being either person.

It also means Goldman keeps stepping in front of his own cast. He will pause right before a duel to talk about his career. He will add a fake scholarly note about Morgenstern's habits. He will tell you he cut thirty pages about Florinese taxes. The joke stays funny for a long while because his timing is good. Near the end, when you want the plot to run clean, the interruptions can grate. If you love footnotes and winks, you will be happy. If you want pure Florin with no New York chatter, you will skim.

Still, keep the frame in mind when Buttercup seems thin or the ending seems short. Goldman wants you to believe an older, stuffier writer made those choices and he merely saved what mattered.

Buttercup and Westley and the pirate who never lived

The early love story is short on purpose.

Buttercup is ranked by travelers as one of the great beauties. Westley is a farm hand with clear eyes and patience. Their courtship is basically orders and answers until Buttercup insults herself into understanding him. She tells herself she loves him after he is gone, which is easy and sad and true to how young regret works.

Westley's death at sea is reported as fact. The Dread Pirate Roberts has a fearsome habit. No survivors. What Buttercup does not know, and what the reader learns slowly, is how the Roberts name works. It is not one man. It is a title passed along. When one Roberts wants to retire, he hands the ship and the name to a chosen successor and stays aboard for a while as crew to keep the story straight. The man we meet as Roberts later is Westley himself, after years of training under the previous bearer. He learned to fence, to fight, to sail, to threaten without killing more than needed. He kept alive by saying please and by being useful, then by being ruthless when the job required it.

Back in Florin, Humperdinck picks Buttercup for practical reasons. She is beautiful. She has no powerful family to object. She can be displayed. He promises power and safety. He also makes clear, in his flat princely way, that love is not part of the deal. Buttercup agrees because she thinks Westley is dead and because refusal does not seem like a choice open to a farm girl picked by a prince.

Her daily rides give three strangers their chance. A Sicilian boss named Vizzini, a Spanish swordsman named Inigo Montoya, and a huge strong man from Turkey named Fezzik snatch her. They plan to kill her on the border of Guilder and leave the body so Florin will blame Guilder and start a war. Humperdinck, who loves hunting and war planning, is secretly pleased by plots that give him an excuse to fight. That detail matters later.

Buttercup tries to escape in small ways and fails. She is not a fighter yet. She watches the sea behind them for a masked sailor who keeps gaining.

That sailor is the Man in Black.

Vizzini, Inigo, Fezzik and the Cliffs of Insanity

This middle stretch is why the book lasts.

Vizzini hires Inigo and Fezzik for muscle and brains, though he thinks he supplies the brains himself. Inigo is a thin, scarred fencer searching for the six fingered man who killed his father. Fezzik is enormous, gentle, rhymes when nervous, and can knock down doors or lift men by the neck. Vizzini is short, quick, vain, and fond of the word inconceivable. He uses it for everything he did not plan, which turns out to be a lot.

They land at the Cliffs of Insanity, a straight rock wall rising from the sea, and climb with Buttercup tied to Fezzik's back while the Man in Black climbs after them with no rope. At the top the fights come in order, each matched to the man.

Inigo waits first. He and the Man in Black talk like fencers, polite and curious, then fight across the plateau. Inigo is wonderful with a blade. He starts left handed to make it fair, then switches when pressed. The Man in Black starts left handed too, then reveals he is right handed as well. Steel rings. They jump across rocks. Inigo loses and is knocked out but spared. He will remember the mercy.

Fezzik waits second. He suggests a fair fight with rules, no weapons, because he likes to wrestle clean. He lets the smaller man choke him for a while to be sporting, then finds himself held too tight and put to sleep. Again the Man in Black spares the loser.

Vizzini waits third and refuses anything fair. He proposes a battle of wits with poison. Two cups of wine. A powder called iocane, odorless and tasteless, that dissolves at once in liquid. Vizzini pours, argues, distracts, swaps, talks about logic and Sicily, and drinks. He dies laughing, certain he has won. The Man in Black tells Buttercup both cups held poison and he has spent years building a tolerance. He also tells her something harder to take. He is Westley, back from the dead, angry that she agreed to marry Humperdinck.

Their reunion is not sweet at first. Westley accuses her of faithlessness. Buttercup defends herself and then proves her old nerve in a terrible way. She shoves him down a steep hill when he taunts her. Only after does she look closer and see the truth. They hold each other and say the old words. The book lets them be happy for about two pages before Florin catches up.

Humperdinck and Count Rugen arrive with a large party. Westley tells Buttercup to run and face the prince, then surrenders to save her. He knows Humperdinck wants him alive for questioning. Rugen, a quiet man with six fingers on his right hand, watches with interest. Inigo, waking up later with a headache, will hear that detail and go cold.

The Fire Swamp, the Pit, and the Zoo

Goldman loves traps. This part strings them together.

Westley and Buttercup flee into the Fire Swamp, which locals avoid for good reasons. The ground spouts flame without warning. Patches of lightning sand suck down boots and horses. And in the brush live R.O.U.S.s, Rodents of Unusual Size, big as dogs, fierce in packs. Westley guides Buttercup through by listening for the hiss before flame, by testing ground with branches, by fighting the rats with a torch and a stick and his teeth when needed. Buttercup follows, learns fast, and starts to act instead of waiting. She still needs rescue, but she stops being luggage.

They get out burned and bitten and alive, only to be taken again. Humperdinck promises Buttercup he will not harm Westley if she comes back and marries him. He keeps the letter of the promise while breaking its heart. He turns Westley over to Rugen and the Pit of Despair, a round underground room built for pain.

Rugen is patient, soft spoken, curious about suffering. He has spent years studying how much hurt a body can hold. He built a device called The Machine, which draws life out in measured pulls. Humperdinck likes to hunt animals. Rugen likes to study men. They suit each other.

Westley is strapped down and drained near to death. He endures, jokes weakly, refuses to scream in ways that please them. When Humperdinck learns Buttercup truly loves Westley and will kill herself if Westley dies, he panics about his wedding optics and orders The Machine turned to full power. Westley dies on the table, or close enough that the book calls it mostly dead.

Mostly dead is slightly alive, as a new friend will explain.

Humperdinck takes Buttercup back to the castle to prepare the wedding. He locks Westley in the dead room and moves on. That choice saves Westley, because two old friends of Fezzik know where bodies go.

Inigo has spent the missing days drunk in Florin, mourning his lost duel and his lost purpose. Fezzik finds him, sobers him with cold water and talk, and tells him Westley is dead and Buttercup will marry the prince. Inigo decides a dead Westley can still lead them if they carry him to the right man. They steal the body and haul it through the streets to a cottage in the woods where Miracle Max lives with his wife Valerie.

Max is short, old, cranky, fired from his post as court miracle worker years ago when Humperdinck replaced him. Valerie scolds, cooks, and keeps him honest. Max looks Westley over, declares him mostly dead, and says mostly dead can be helped. True love is the active ingredient, plus a coated pill to coat the throat for the return. He builds a bellows, forces air and medicine into Westley, and tells Inigo the revived man will be weak for a long while. Fezzik carries Westley like a sack of flour while Inigo plans a castle break in.

Humperdinck, meanwhile, shows his full shape. He does not love Buttercup. He plans to have her killed on the wedding night and blame Guilder, which will let him start the war he has wanted for years. He has kept Count Rugen close because Rugen enjoys secrets and keeps them. He has kept his Zoo of Death stocked below the castle because fear keeps servants quick. Buttercup begins to see she is not a bride to him. She is a trigger.

Storming the castle with a dead man leading

The break in should not work. That is why it is fun.

Fezzik, Inigo, and a half awake Westley reach the castle walls at night. Fezzik has strength but fears crowds. Inigo has skill but a wound from earlier. Westley can barely move but can think. Westley uses that brain like a general. He finds the weak gate, times the guard change, has Fezzik snap the lock and lift the portcullis. Inigo goes first with his sword, Fezzik follows with fists, Westley is wheeled or carried behind giving orders in a whisper.

Inigo meets Rugen in the halls below. The book has waited a long time for this. Inigo's father Domingo was a master sword maker who refused to sell a fine blade for a tenth of its worth to a rich man with six fingers. That man killed him in front of the boy and left the boy alive with two scars on his cheeks. Inigo trained for years, drank, wasted time, found purpose again, and now faces the man in a narrow passage near the Zoo cages.

Rugen tries to buy, to run, to cheat. Inigo takes wounds and keeps coming. He repeats the words he has practiced for half his life.

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

He says it plainly, not shouting, and finishes the work. It is the most serious scene in a comic book, and Goldman plays it straight. No jokes. No aside. Fezzik holds the door. The animals howl below.

Upstairs Buttercup faces Humperdinck. She tells him she will kill herself if Westley is harmed. He lies smoothly. On the wedding day she realizes he means to kill her after the ceremony. She locks herself in, despairs, then hears Westley at the door, weak and upright with help.

Westley and Humperdinck meet in the bridal suite. Humperdinck is the better athlete, rested, armed, used to killing large beasts. Westley can barely stand. So Westley fights with words. He describes what he will do to a man who tortured him, a long program of pain called to the pain, which means he will leave Humperdinck alive but ruined in small precise ways. Humperdinck, who understands pain as a hunter does, believes him and drops his sword. Westley ties him up and leaves him for his empty wedding.

The four friends flee. Fezzik finds white horses. Inigo finds his future, unsure what a revenge man does after revenge. Fezzik finds friends who do not fear him. Buttercup and Westley ride out, kiss at last, and Goldman dares to say the kiss outranks many famous kisses in books. He stops the tale there, with pursuit still possible and happiness still fragile. In the frame he admits his father stopped at the kiss when he was sick, and he loves that his father knew where to stop.

What holds up and what creaks

The fights hold up best.

The Inigo duel repays rereading because Goldman knows footwork and rhythm. Left hand against left hand, switch, speed, breath. The Fezzik wrestle charms because Fezzik insists on rules and rhymes under stress. The iocane scene stays sharp because Vizzini talks himself into death while Westley stays calm. The Fire Swamp works because Goldman gives each danger a sound or a sign, then makes Westley use it. The Pit scenes grip because Rugen is quiet. Loud villains brag. Rugen takes notes.

The jokes also hold, though taste varies. Fezzik's rhymes, Max and Valerie bickering about a mostly dead body, Inigo drunk and noble, Humperdinck's hunting diary entries, the constant Florinese history footnotes. I laughed out loud at Max telling Valerie to think of the money and Valerie telling Max to think of humanity. Friends who read with me quoted Vizzini for days.

Fair criticism belongs here, because a friend should warn you.

Buttercup is thin for long stretches. Goldman admits the old Morgenstern text treated her as beauty first, person second, and his abridgment keeps too much of that. She grows braver in the swamp and sharper in the castle, but Westley, Inigo, Fezzik, even Vizzini get more inner life. Modern readers who want her to drive more scenes will feel the gap. The 1987 film softens this a little with casting and timing. The book leaves it bare.

Goldman's asides can tire. One or two Hollywood stories amuse. Five in a row stall a chase. His talk about his son Jason reads honest, but it also reads like a father working out guilt in the margins of someone else's fairy tale. Readers who love talky narrators will forgive it. Readers who want Florin straight will skip pages, which is exactly what the frame tells them to do.

The Zoo of Death and late castle planning run long. Goldman loves secret levels, guard rotations, keys, wheels, levers. Some of that detail pays off when Fezzik bends it. Some of it feels like showing off a map. The Humperdinck plan to murder Buttercup for war is chilling and believable, but it arrives fast after many pages of wedding prep. A little more time with Buttercup seeing through him earlier would have helped.

The prose is plain in a good way. Short sentences. Clear names. Jokes set up and paid. Goldman avoids purple description and keeps Florin bright and hard edged. He repeats catch phrases until they sing. As you wish. Inconceivable. Mostly dead. To the pain. Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. Anyone who grew up quoting the film will find those lines have roots here, with a little more bite.

Who should read it. If you like adventure with jokes and can stand a narrator who keeps tapping your shoulder, read it. If you want romance with no irony, the frame may annoy you. If you want grim fantasy, this is too sunny and too talky. At 398 pages in the common mass market printing, it moves fast except for the castle cellar chapters and the Hollywood detours. Give it through the Cliffs. If Inigo losing and living does not move you, set it aside. If it does, you will finish in a rush and then argue about the kiss.

I closed it thinking about fathers and sons more than princes. A sick boy hears only the good parts. A grown man tries to give his own boy the same gift and learns taste changes. A made up scholar from a made up country gets thanked for a story about a farm boy who always said yes in three words. That chain of handing stories down feels true even though every link is fake. Few comic fantasies earn that feeling. This one does, in between duels, rhymes, poison cups, swamp flames, and a miracle worker who hates his old boss.

Read the duel chapters slow. Read the Max chapters aloud if you can. Skim the tax jokes without shame. When you reach the horses at the end, stop where Goldman's father stopped and sit with it a minute before you check what happens in the film. The book wants that pause.

FAQ

Is S. Morgenstern real and is there a longer version to read?

No, Morgenstern, Florin and Guilder are inventions by Goldman to frame the story as an abridged classic. The 1973 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich book is the complete text, with the longer original existing only inside the joke.

How different is the book from the 1987 film?

The spine matches, including the Cliffs of Insanity, Fire Swamp, Pit of Despair and Inigo duel with Rugen. The book adds more frame story, more Zoo of Death detail, and longer asides about Goldman family life.

Is The Princess Bride good for older kids?

Yes for readers about twelve and up who like fencing and jokes. There is torture on The Machine, giant rats in the swamp, and talk of murder for war, but the tone stays comic and the scares pass fast.