Buy new:
$9.89$9.89
FREE delivery: Friday, Feb 3 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon.
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Buy used: $8.99
Other Sellers on Amazon
+ $3.99 shipping
86% positive over last 12 months
+ $3.99 shipping
96% positive over last 12 months
+ $3.99 shipping
85% positive over last 12 months

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.


The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Mass Market Paperback – October 8, 2007
Price | New from | Used from |
Audible Audiobook, Abridged
"Please retry" |
$0.00
| Free with your Audible trial |
Hardcover, Abridged
"Please retry" | $17.59 | $8.96 |
Audio, Cassette, Abridged
"Please retry" |
—
| — | $7.00 |
- Kindle
$10.49 Read with Our Free App -
Audiobook
$0.00 Free with your Audible trial - Hardcover
$25.00 - Paperback
$11.99 - Mass Market Paperback
$9.89 - Audio, Cassette
from $7.00
Enhance your purchase
This tale of true love, high adventure, pirates, princesses, giants, miracles, fencing, and a frightening assortment of wild beasts was unforgettably depicted in the 1987 film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Fred Savage, Robin Wright, and others. But, rich in character and satire, the novel boasts even more layers of ingenious storytelling. Set in 1941 and framed cleverly as an “abridged” retelling of a centuries-old tale set in the fabled country of Florin, home to “Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passions.”
William Goldman's modern fantasy classic is an exceptional story about quests—for riches, revenge, power, and, of course, true love—that's thrilling and timeless for readers of all ages.
- Print length512 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarcourt
- Publication dateOctober 8, 2007
- Reading age14 years and up
- Dimensions4.19 x 1.28 x 6.88 inches
- ISBN-109780156035217
- ISBN-13978-0156035217
- Lexile measure870L
"Where the Lost Wander: A Novel" by Amy Harmon for $7.99
In this epic and haunting love story set on the Oregon Trail, a family and their unlikely protector find their way through peril, uncertainty, and loss. | Learn more
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
- "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die,"Highlighted by 1,672 Kindle readers
- "Life is pain," his mother said. "Anybody that says different is selling something."Highlighted by 1,387 Kindle readers
- "You keep using that word!" the Spaniard snapped. "I don't think it means what you think it does."Highlighted by 1,242 Kindle readers
Editorial Reviews
Review
PRAISE FOR THE PRINCESS BRIDE
"[Goldman's] swashbuckling fable is nutball funny . . . A 'classic' medieval melodrama that sounds like all the Saturday serials you ever saw feverishly reworked by the Marx Brothers." --Newsweek
"One of the funniest, most original, and deeply moving novels I have read in a long time." --Los Angeles Times —
From the Inside Flap
As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the "S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad's recitation, and only the "good parts" reached his ears.
Now Goldman does Dad one better. He's reconstructed the "Good Parts Version" to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.
What's it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.
In short, it's about everything.
Eventually to be adapted for the silver screen, THE PRINCESS BRIDE was originally a beautifully simple, insightfully comic story of what happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince in the world--and he turnsout to be a son of a bitch. Guaranteed to entertain both young and old alike by combining scenes of rowsing fantasy with hilarious reality, THE PRINCESS BRIDE secures Goldman's place as a master storyteller.
"From the Paperback edition.
From the Back Cover
A tale of true love and high adventure, pirates, princesses, giants, miracles, fencing, and a frightening assortment of wild beasts--The Princess Bride is a modern storytelling classic.
As Florin and Guilder teeter on the verge of war, the reluctant Princess Buttercup is devastated by the loss of her true love, kidnapped by a mercenary and his henchman, rescued by a pirate, forced to marry Prince Humperdinck, and rescued once again by the very crew who absconded with her in the first place. In the course of this dazzling adventure, she'll meet Vizzini--the criminal philosopher who'll do anything for a bag of gold; Fezzik--the gentle giant; Inigo--the Spaniard whose steel thirsts for revenge; and Count Rugen--the evil mastermind behind it all. Foiling all their plans and jumping into their stories is Westley, Princess Buttercup’s one true love and a very good friend of a very dangerous pirate.
William Goldman has been writing books and movies for more than forty years. He has won two Academy Awards (one for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and one for All the President's Men), and three Lifetime Achievement awards in screenwriting.About the Author
WILLIAM GOLDMAN (1931-2018) wrote books and movies for more than fifty years. He won two Academy Awards (for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men), and three Lifetime Achievement Awards in screenwriting.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Bride
The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette. Annette worked in Paris for the Duke and Duchess de Guiche, and it did not escape the Duke’s notice that someone extraordinary was polishing the pewter. The Duke’s notice did not escape the notice of the Duchess either, who was not very beautiful and not very rich, but plenty smart. The Duchess set about studying Annette and shortly found her adversary’s tragic flaw.
Chocolate.
Armed now, the Duchess set to work. The Palace de Guiche turned into a candy castle. Everywhere you looked, bonbons. There were piles of chocolate-covered mints in the drawing rooms, baskets of chocolate-covered nougats in the parlors.
Annette never had a chance. Inside a season, she went from delicate to whopping, and the Duke never glanced in her direction without sad bewilderment clouding his eyes. (Annette, it might be noted, seemed only cheerier throughout her enlargement. She eventually married the pastry chef and they both ate a lot until old age claimed them. Things, it might also be noted, did not fare so cheerily for the Duchess. The Duke, for reasons passing understanding, next became smitten with his very own mother-in-law, which caused the Duchess ulcers, only they didn’t have ulcers yet. More precisely, ulcers existed, people had them, but they weren’t called “ulcers.” The medical profession at that time called them “stomach pains” and felt the best cure was coffee dolloped with brandy twice a day until the pains subsided. The Duchess took her mixture faithfully, watching through the years as her husband and her mother blew kisses at each other behind her back. Not surprisingly, the Duchess’s grumpiness became legendary, as Voltaire has so ably chronicled. Except this was before Voltaire.)
The year Buttercup turned ten, the most beautiful woman lived in Bengal, the daughter of a successful tea merchant. This girl’s name was Aluthra, and her skin was of a dusky perfection unseen in India for eighty years. (There have only been eleven perfect complexions in all of India since accurate accounting began.) Aluthra was nineteen the year the pox plague hit Bengal. The girl survived, even if her skin did not.
When Buttercup was fifteen, Adela Terrell, of Sussex on the Thames, was easily the most beautiful creature. Adela was twenty, and so far did she outdistance the world that it seemed certain she would be the most beautiful for many, many years. But then one day, one of her suitors (she had 104 of them) exclaimed that without question Adela must be the most ideal item yet spawned. Adela, flattered, began to ponder on the truth of the statement. That night, alone in her room, she examined herself pore by pore in her mirror. (This was after mirrors.) It took her until close to dawn to finish her inspection, but by that time it was clear to her that the young man had been quite correct in his assessment: she was, through no real faults of her own, perfect.
As she strolled through the family rose gardens watching the sun rise, she felt happier than she had ever been. “Not only am I perfect,” she said to herself, “I am probably the first perfect person in the whole long history of the universe. Not a part of me could stand improving, how lucky I am to be perfect and rich and sought after and sensitive and young and . . .”
Young?
The mist was rising around her as Adela began to think. Well of course I’ll always be sensitive, she thought, and I’ll always be rich, but I don’t quite see how I’m going to manage to always be young. And when I’m not young, how am I going to stay perfect? And if I’m not perfect, well, what else is there? What indeed? Adela furrowed her brow in desperate thought. It was the first time in her life her brow had ever had to furrow, and Adela gasped when she realized what she had done, horrified that she had somehow damaged it, perhaps permanently. She rushed back to her mirror and spent the morning, and although she managed to convince herself that she was still quite as perfect as ever, there was no question that she was not quite as happy as she had been.
She had begun to fret.
The first worry lines appeared within a fortnight; the first wrinkles within a month, and before the year was out, creases abounded. She married soon thereafter, the selfsame man who accused her of sublimity, and gave him merry hell for many years.
Buttercup, of course, at fifteen, knew none of this. And if she had, would have found it totally unfathomable. How could someone care if she were the most beautiful woman in the world or not. What difference could it have made if you were only the third most beautiful. Or the sixth. (Buttercup at this time was nowhere near that high, being barely in the top twenty, and that primarily on potential, certainly not on any particular care she took of herself. She hated to wash her face, she loathed the area behind her ears, she was sick of combing her hair and did so as little as possible.) What she liked to do, preferred above all else really, was to ride her horse and taunt the farm boy.
The horse’s name was “Horse” (Buttercup was never long on imagination) and it came when she called it, went where she steered it, did what she told it. The farm boy did what she told him too. Actually, he was more a young man now, but he had been a farm boy when, orphaned, he had come to work for her father, and Buttercup referred to him that way still. “Farm Boy, fetch me this”; “Get me that, Farm Boy—quickly, lazy thing, trot now or I’ll tell Father.”
“As you wish.”
That was all he ever answered. “As you wish.” Fetch that, Farm Boy. “As you wish.” Dry this, Farm Boy. “As you wish.” He lived in a hovel out near the animals and, according to Buttercup’s mother, he kept it clean. He even read when he had candles.
“I’ll leave the lad an acre in my will,” Buttercup’s father was fond of saying. (They had acres then.)
“You’ll spoil him,” Buttercup’s mother always answered.
“He’s slaved for many years; hard work should be rewarded.” Then, rather than continue the argument (they had arguments then too), they would both turn on their daughter.
“You didn’t bathe,” her father said.
“I did, I did” from Buttercup.
“Not with water,” her father continued. “You reek like a stallion.”
“I’ve been riding all day,” Buttercup explained.
“You must bathe, Buttercup,” her mother joined in. “The boys don’t like their girls to smell of stables.”
“Oh, the boys!” Buttercup fairly exploded. “I do not care about ‘the boys.’ Horse loves me and that is quite sufficient, thank you.”
She said that speech loud, and she said it often.
But, like it or not, things were beginning to happen.
Shortly before her sixteenth birthday, Buttercup realized that it had now been more than a month since any girl in the village had spoken to her. She had never much been close to girls, so the change was nothing sharp, but at least before there were head nods exchanged when she rode through the village or along the cart tracks. But now, for no reason, there was nothing. A quick glance away as she approached, that was all. Buttercup cornered Cornelia one morning at the blacksmith’s and asked about the silence. “I should think, after what you’ve done, you’d have the courtesy not to pretend to ask” came from Cornelia. “And what have I done?” “What? What? . . . You’ve stolen them.” With that, Cornelia fled, but Buttercup understood; she knew who “them” was.
The boys.
The village boys.
The beef-witted featherbrained rattlesk...
Product details
- ASIN : 0156035219
- Publisher : Harcourt; Reprint edition (October 8, 2007)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 512 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780156035217
- ISBN-13 : 978-0156035217
- Reading age : 14 years and up
- Lexile measure : 870L
- Item Weight : 9.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.19 x 1.28 x 6.88 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #85,816 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #905 in Romantic Action & Adventure
- #2,245 in Fantasy Action & Adventure
- #3,266 in Romantic Fantasy (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

William Goldman (b. 1931) is an Academy Award–winning author of screenplays, plays, memoirs, and novels. His first novel, The Temple of Gold (1957), was followed by the script for the Broadway army comedy Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole (1961). He went on to write the screenplays for many acclaimed films, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and All the President’s Men (1976), for which he won two Academy Awards. He adapted his own novels for the hit movies Marathon Man (1976) and The Princess Bride (1987).
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Indigo Montoya’s line, “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die,” still appears on t-shirts across colleges today. Granted, it’s best known from the movie, which made the book famous, but Goldman wrote the script for the film as well.
This latest version, from the thirtieth anniversary edition, has not only all the “editorial notes” (and side comments) from the original and twenty-fifth anniversary editions, but also the first chapter of a sequel, 𝘉𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘶𝘱'𝘴 𝘉𝘢𝘣𝘺. Goldman was only allowed to write the one chapter of the abridgment of S. Morganstern’s* sequel— the rest had been contracted by the Morganstern* Estate to be written by Stephen King**, according to the book.
Sadly, no more of the exciting tale will come from the typewriter of William Goldman who died in 2018, so far as I know without the ministrations of Miracle Max. A great shame, as I would love to know more about the great flying, and talking, bird.
*S. Morganstern almost certainly existed only in the author’s imagination— which doesn’t explain all the times the Estate sued him.
**It’s unclear whether Mr. King was aware of his prominent role in bringing S. Morganstern’s sequel to the public before this edition saw print, or whether it came as a pleasant surprise. [His website’s FAQ claims it was a joke from his old friend Bill Goldman. That could be true, or maybe he’s just trying to avoid the litigious Morganstern Estate.]
I can say the book is better than the movie… but taken together… they amplify the enjoyment of one another.
Recommend without reservation.



Later found the book cheap and bought it on a lark not having very high hope.
Was surprised i liked it very much and where actually fooled a bit that it was a rewrite since I wasn't familiar with it.
If you as me haven't read it i highly recommend it. Start a bit slow but is easily read and it picks up and are very entertaining.
There's a lot of parts cut out (thus the 4 stars) , but honestly who wants to read 60 pages about trees, or 13 pages about a Countess packing and unpacking dresses?
He's also made notations during parts of the books about why the parts were cut, which I found helpful, but he does have a tendency to ramble on a bit.
The action scenes we loved in the movie are all there, and even some action scenes not included in the movie.
The scenes we see with Fred Savage and Peter Faulk were based off Goldman's experience when his father read the book to him, so I feel that was a nice touch.
Goldman did research with the help of Morganstern's estate, including letters and a diary written by the author, which helps the reader understand Morganstern and his satire a little bit more.
Overall, I thought it was a great read, and there's a chapter from "Buttercup's Baby" that I want to see if I can find so I can read THAT.
I have no recollection of when I first read William Goldman’s beloved novel, but I can tell you that in the decades since, I’ve read the book and seen the film at least a dozen times. It is very high on my list of all-time favorites. I never grow tired of it. I can pick this book up and start reading on any page and get sucked in immediately. And as soon as I’ve finished it, I could easily start reading from page one all over again. It is a case of true love.
Now, you have to have been living under a rock for the past few decades not to have an idea of what this tale is about. It’s the story of the beautiful milkmaid Buttercup and her love for the dashing farm boy Westley and all they go through in order to be together. Additionally, the novel uses the author’s life as a framing device. In what is purported to be a series of forwards and abridger’s notes, Goldman reflects on his personal history with “S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure.” He speaks candidly (and entirely fictitiously) of his family life, and perhaps somewhat less fictitiously of his professional life. And he tells the story of how his father first read him the tale when he was ten years old. When he asked if there were any sports in the book, the man replied:
“Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautiful ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles.”
I ask you, what more could a reader possibly want?
The one thing Goldman forgot to list is humor. What has made this tale such a classic, in addition to the fact that it contains one of the five greatest kisses of all time, is the novel’s adroit humor. It ranges from sophisticated to glib to farcical, and it never fails to make me smile. Because of the brilliant film adaptation (also written by Goldman), many of the novel’s lines and passages have become cultural touchstones. Have you ever cried, “Inconceivable!” in a Wally Shawn lisp? Mandy Patinkin doesn’t go a day without someone coming up to him and proclaiming, “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!” Does the phrase “As you wish.” just give you chills? These characters are indelible, and Mr. Goldman’s humor has held up for 40 years. I believe people still be chuckling over this novel a hundred years from now. Shakespeare, Jane Austen, P.G. Wodehouse—some humor is simply timeless.
Clearly, I love a feel-good story, but most suffer from diminishing returns. Maybe it was awesome the first time you read it, pretty good the second, and less so on successive reads. Not so, The Princess Bride. If anything, I think my considerable affection for this novel grows with each successive reading. And I’m still spotting new things! On this read, for the first time, I spotted the fake blurbs at the front of the Kindle edition. (One was from “Shog Bongiorno, professor emeritus, Mid-European Literature, Columbia University,” LOL.)
Twenty-fifth and thirtieth anniversary editions of The Princess Bride have contained new forwards that continue the story that Goldman uses as the novel’s framing device. And after the novel’s end, there is a lengthy introduction to a substantial sample of the novel’s fictitious sequel, Buttercup’s Baby. I’ve read it all except for Buttercup’s Baby. I can only read that for the first time once, and I’m just not ready to experience it yet. Besides, maybe one day Mr. Goldman will elbow out Stephen King for the job and will finish the abridgement of the sequel. Hope springs eternal. And isn’t that the nature of true love?
Top reviews from other countries

Besides these two very obvious and attractive leads, there is a trio of misfit assassins, the scheming Italian hunchback Vizzini, the lean and mean Spanish swordsman, Inigo, whose facial scars betray a traumatic past and a vengeful spirit, and a powerful giant wrestler Fezzik. Rounding out the cast of colourful characters is the villainous prince, Humperdinck. Straightforward enough, but is it really?
Without giving too much away, Goldman positions his novel as an abridged version of a much older text by S. Morgenstern, capturing all its “good parts,” and leaving out the tedious details of the ponderous original. Suffice to say that the reader would miss out on the full genius of the novel if he were to skip the introduction and the commentary (biographical editorial asides that seem to tell another story) by Goldman because they are integral to the overall work and act as a framing narrative, but the work is so much more than that. You need to read it to discover it for yourself.
Included in this 25th anniversary edition is the first chapter of a purported sequel, “Buttercup’s Baby,” which adds to the intrigue and mythology of the original text, and expands the metafictional universe of Goldman’s work. A wholly satisfying read.


At its heart we have a fun romp of a fantasy novel, and as the synopsis says it has a little bit of everything.
But for me it’s the way the story is presented which takes it to the next level. William Goldman claims to have take a beloved story from his childhood and edited it down to only the good bits, with brilliant commentary scattered throughout.
Overall this was a really fun read. And it’s about time I try out the movie!

The Princess Bride, truth be told, is a rather silly book. But is quite well done as a ‘silly’ book, and of course contains at least two pop-culture catch phrases of high visibility. It is inconceivable that one does not recall Inigo Monteyo and his cry of revenge, not even if one is not quite certain of the meaning of that word.
It is also a meta fiction, as Goldman periodically throws open the 4th wall to maintain the fiction that he has abridged a story read to him by his father whilst the 10YO Goldman recovered from illness. Goldman of course has done the modern day reader the great service of excising great swaths of the original Morganstern, where the supposed author has indulged in flagrantly violating the edict of modern fiction to show, not tell. Goldman himself indulges in just such sins in the rather tedious and dull prefaces and afterwords which were part of the edition I read.
I wanted to like it more, but must conclude that I find it less than the sum of its parts.

It's been a while since I saw the film so some of the finer plot points I'd forgotten which made the overall story more fun for me as some bits were still a surprise. The tone of the book was much like the film, irreverent and flippant, with constant asides in brackets about random things. The romping adventure plot was still just as much fun and most of the characters got more backstory and development than in the film which made it a richer experience overall.
Sadly I felt this version of the novel was let down overall by the Buttercup's Baby sequence at the end. It just didn't work for me, way too much fictional reality where the author wrangled with the Morgenstern estate, met with Stephen King, and so on. That all really dragged for me. The ratio of asides to actual story was also far too high so I didn't really follow what little story there was very well. I also just didn't like the story very much, sadly.
But still, that didn't dim my enjoyment for the main work. My recommendation would be to not bother reading Buttercup's Baby if you ever get a version that includes it, as far as I'm concerned it adds nothing of real value or enjoyment.
TL:DR version - if you love the movie, you'll love the book too.
![]() |