The Last Unicorn [Paperback]

Peter S. Beagle (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 1, 1991

The 30th anniversary of a fantasy classic from Peter S. Beagle!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Last Unicorn is one of the true classics of fantasy, ranking with Tolkien's The Hobbit, Le Guin's Earthsea Trilogy, and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Beagle writes a shimmering prose-poetry, the voice of fairy tales and childhood:

The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.

The unicorn discovers that she is the last unicorn in the world, and sets off to find the others. She meets Schmendrick the Magician--whose magic seldom works, and never as he intended--when he rescues her from Mommy Fortuna's Midnight Carnival, where only some of the mythical beasts displayed are illusions. They are joined by Molly Grue, who believes in legends despite her experiences with a Robin Hood wannabe and his unmerry men. Ahead wait King Haggard and his Red Bull, who banished unicorns from the land.

This is a book no fantasy reader should miss; Beagle argues brilliantly the need for magic in our lives and the folly of forgetting to dream. --Nona Vero

About the Author

Peter S. Beagle, a World Fantasy Award nominee, is the bestselling author of the fantasy classic The Last Unicorn as well as many other highly acclaimed works. His novels and stories have been translated into sixteen languages worldwide, and his long and fascinating career has covered everything from journalism and stage adaptations to songwriting and performances. He has given readings, lectures, and concerts of his own songs from coast to coast, and has written several screenplays, including Ralph Bakshi's film version of The Lord of the Rings.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Roc Trade; 0040-Anniversary edition (January 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451450523
• ISBN-13: 978-0451450524
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (279 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,215 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #17 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Mythology & Folk Tales > Fairy Tales

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

183 of 193 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Post-Modern Fairy Tale January 21, 2004

By mp

Format:Paperback

Along with the rest of the civilized world, my wandering memories often lead me back to two of my favorite childhood movies, "The Neverending Story" and "The Last Unicorn." Practically all I could remember of the latter was some skull yelling "Unicorn! Uuuunicorn!" That image and that voice have left a lingering discomfort in the back of my mind for years. A while back, I found a little time to investigate Michael Ende's novel, "The Neverending Story," and just recently, I managed to come across a copy of "The Last Unicorn," and I couldn't help but read it. In both cases, these novels have more than repayed my childhood memories, giving my adult mind philosophical and literary substance as well as real joy. Peter S. Beagle's 1968 novel, "The Last Unicorn," is much more than a simple fantasy story - though it is rife with magicians, mythical creatures, and all of the customary trappings. It is even more than a complex fantasy story - somehow Beagle enchants us into a timeless place where nothing seems unusual - "The Last Unicorn" creates a space for magic in our modern lives.

The novel begins as a unicorn overhears two hunters riding through her wood - the hunters debate whether unicorns exist anymore. The unicorn begins to wonder if indeed she is the last of her kind, and goes in search of other unicorns. She is caught sleeping by Mommy Fortuna, owner of the Midnight Carnival, who displays the unicorn for a time alongside a real harpy and a motley bunch of meek, hopeless animals who are made, through Fortuna's magic, to resemble other dangerous mythical beasts for the entertainment of travellers, tourists, and townsfolk. Schmendrick, a fairly useless magician, and an assistant to the Midnight Carnival, recognizes the unicorn for what she is, and freeing her, they set off together to find the unicorns. Once they are joined by a woodland dweller named Molly Grue, the company is complete. Their search brings them to the domain of King Haggard, who, along with the demoniacal, but eerily incorporeal Red Bull, seems to have something to do with the disappearance of the unicorns.

Though the novel is a quest, there isn't much real movement - the novel moves from the unicorn's wood, over land to Haggard's castle by the sea, which is where almost half of the novel takes place. The more significant quests here are ones of self-discovery, as the unicorn, Schmendrick, and Prince Lir, King Haggard's heir, must all try to figure out who they are, what they want to be, and how to accomplish their goals without being consumed by existential despair. Related questions the novel poses include speculations on the nature of the hero, on the metafictional nature of the fairy tale as a genre, and what the difference is between evil and self-interest, between love and hatred. "The Last Unicorn" is also a rumination on the nature of interpersonal (or interspecies) relationships, and is in spots as concerned with ecology and the environment as J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings."

However, far and away, the most compelling facets of "The Last Unicorn" for me are Beagle's minor touches, minutiae that some people might miss on a first reading. Seemingly meaningless conversations, like the one between the hunters which begins the novel, between Captain Cully and his disaffected latter-day Robin Hoods in the forest, or between a 'married' pair of blue jays betray a depth and attention to detail and a real artistry in Beagle's literary workmanship. They alert us, as certainly as Tolkien's work does, to the fact that we, the novel's readers, live in a prosaic world, divested of magic and enchantments. Beagle's novel shows that creating, living in, and sustaining a fantasy world can be as much work, and can involve as much pain as our own normal daily lives. Indeed, one amazing quality of "The Last Unicorn" is that it hardly differentiates between the normal modern world and that of the fairy tale. One reviewer mentions that the novel takes place in the Middle Ages - is it at all astonishing then, to hear Cully at one point mention the "field-recordings" that will one day be made of his oral poetry while he himself eats a taco?

"The Last Unicorn" has endured for almost 40 years because it manages to imbue things like "field-recordings" with a kind of magical quality that seems as natural as talking birds and butterflies. Beagle also reminds us that we are each heroes of our own stories - whether we stick to the literary conventions of genre or not. The inclusion of subtle anachronisms and metafictional commentaries like these clues us to Beagle's art - the creation of a new kind of fairy tale, one which attempts to make our own world, our own lives, sources of almost limitless wonder and joy, as well as of continuing epic challenges.

76 of 80 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A story of wit and charm, immeasurable beauty and emotion. July 6, 2000

By E. Chen

Format:Paperback

The Last Unicorn is one of most astounding books I have ever read. Not only because of the story, which is a fairytale in every sense of the word, but also because of Beagle's flawless writing, which weaves a spell of words and images that I find myself willingly ensnared in every time I open its pages. I find myself lingering over each sentence, each word, and I am astounded by the care with which he tells this tale.

Once upon a time, there was a unicorn. A beautiful unicorn... who was all alone. She sets out on a journey to seek others of her kind and is joined on her travels by a bumbling magician and an old spinster, neither of who are what they first appear to be. Encountering magical monsters, outlaws and suspicious townspeople, the three travelers find themselves at the gate of a forbidding castle wherein lives a cruel king and a gentle prince. It is in the walls of this castle that the truth lies. But can they accept what the truth will bring?

Beagle tells an amazing tale, of love and loss, of heartache and hope. Each of the characters in his work has such life and depth, and I see myself in each and every one of them. From an inept magician who desperately seeks to be more than what he is to the outlaws who cry out with loss of that which they have never known, there is so much life in these few short pages that I find myself reading and rereading each page, afraid lest I miss something. When Schmendrick cries, "I'll make you into a bad poet with dreams!" I want to laugh, but at the same time I want to cry with pity, with unexplainable sorrow for something I can't quite understand and am not sure I want to.

The Last Unicorn is about more than just a quest for unicorns. It is also a story about the things that we love and what we will do - or not do - for that love. It is about what really defines a hero, and what constitutes a happy ending. But most of all, it is about magic. Joy. Sadness. Beauty. It is about all the things we are and all the things we long to be. It is a breathtakingly beautiful story by a wonderful writer, and I recommend it as one of the best books I have ever read.

51 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Last Unicorn: The Last of the Literary Fairy Tales September 26, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle is one of the last, best fairy tales of our generation. It's a great read for an adult or a child; I first read it in fourth grade, and recently re-read it as an adult with no less sense of wonder or awe.

It's an often tongue-in-cheek fairy tale about the last unicorn left on a Midaevil Earth, which unicorn represents (of course) the last of the immortal magic that is inevitably represented in good fantasies. The story is set in the usual quest setting, with the expected good and evil dichotomy and characters such as a bumbling yet powerful wizard, a good-hearted lass, a handsome hero, and, last but foremost, the beautiful and sorrowful, immortal unicorn.

What sets this tale apart from others--it is most definitely in the same league as C.S. Lewis' the Chronicles of Narnia, or his more adult Till We Have Faces--is its flowing prose and often unexpected sense of humor. Beagle pokes fun at the fantasy form of story-telling (for the enjoyment of the adult reader), while not allowing the jibes to be too satirical or otherwise distracting from the beauty and grace of the story itself. While the tale stays within the traditional confines and plot of a fairy tale/fantasy, the characters are so well-written and the story so imaginative and well-told, the tale's traditional form only adds to its sense of magic.

In short, it's one of the very best fairy tale/fantasies I've had the pleasure of reading (and re-reading). I unabashedly recommend it to the young and old with five stars.