The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, The 'Good Parts' Version, a 1973 fantasy romance, was written by the American writer William Goldman. It combines comedy, adventure, fantasy and fairy tale, and it is presented as an abridgement of a longer work by the fictional Florinese author S. Morgenstern, with Goldman's commentary running throughout. It was adapted into a feature film in 1987, directed by Rob Reiner and starring Cary Elwes and Robin Wright.

The novel opens with Goldman telling how the book came about, how he learned that the version his father read to him was a 'good parts' abridgement, and how he claims to have found the original verbose work and cut it down himself. That frame is part of the book, and it interrupts the narrative with asides about the author, his family and his opinions. The main narrative keeps, in his telling, the fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes and true love, and cuts the politics.

Buttercup is the most beautiful woman in the world, and Westley is the farm boy who loves her and goes away to make his fortune. What happens to them involves a Sicilian who thinks faster than anyone else, a Spanish swordsman with one thing left to do, a giant who is kind, and a prince who is not. The story is told as an adventure rather than a romance, and it is delivered in a tone that mixes jokes with genuine peril.

Goldman's frame story is a deliberate fiction, and the book is a standalone novel rather than the first of a series. The novel's joke about an unabridged original has been taken at face value by some readers.