The Princess Bride Deluxe Limited Edition: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure

by William Goldman

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Classics, Fiction, Adventure, Humor

464 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2025

About the author

Goldman grew up in a Jewish family in Highland Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, and obtained a BA degree at Oberlin College in 1952 and an MA degree at Columbia University in 1956.His brother was the late James Goldman, author and playwright.

William Goldman had published five novels and had three plays produced on Broadway before he began to write screenplays. Several of his novels he later used as the foundation for his screenplays.

In the 1980s he wrote a series of memoirs looking at his professional life on Broadway and in Hollywood (in one of these he famously remarked that "Nobody knows anything"). He then returned to writing novels. He then adapted his novel The Princess Bride to the screen, which marked his re-entry into screenwriting.

Goldman won two Academy Awards: an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for All the President's Men. He also won two Edgar Awards, from the Mystery Writers of America, for Best Motion Picture Screenplay: for Harper in 1967, and for Magic (adapted from his own 1976 novel) in 1979.

Goldman died in New York City on November 16, 2018, due to complications from colon cancer and pneumonia. He was eighty-seven years old.

Reviews

[Ophelia ೀ Moon (Novel Writing Hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok first of all, I read this slightly biased because The Princess Bride (1987) is and will always be one of my favorite movies of all time. One of those ones I could recite by heart but this was my first time reading the book. So I will compare this to the movie as well because, in my personal opinion, it is one of those rare circumstances the movie is better than the book.

What surprised me the most was that this was not the original story. This is a deeply edited version of the S. Morgenstern’s classic by William Goldman. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed by that at the beginnin, but as I read further, I actually appreciated it. For example, Goldman removed 56 and a half pages from part three because Morgenstern felt the need to describe every single article of clothing the Queen and the Princess Noreena packed for their journey. As a future author and an avid reader, unless hats are an important element to the story (which I can assure you they weren’t the entire book), that’s a bit excessive 😭 So the fact that Goldman managed to edit the thousand page manuscript to just under 400 pages is quite the accomplishment. Hence, the “good parts” edition. I also appreciate he didn’t physically change the story with his own work, but just removed the excessive bits

⋆˚₊ 𖤓☽˚.⋆ ⋆˚₊ 𖤓☽˚.⋆ ⋆˚₊ 𖤓☽˚.⋆ ⋆˚₊ 𖤓☽˚.⋆

What I enjoyed from the book:
1) The details, as always. Some of the dialogue was cheesy, but I was thrilled to see many of my favorite movie lines are direct quotes from the book.
2) Missing plot points/details from the movie. Some of my biggest questions were answered from the book in fact. For example, the reason why Guilder hated Florin so much was how Prince Humperdinck rejected poor bald Princess Noreena. Prince Humperdinck was the one who hired the iconic inconceivable trio (Vizzini, Fezzik, and Inigo) to kidnap Buttercup. So that was fascinating to learn. It was also interesting to see the iconic “Machine” was actually not in a random torture chamber in the middle of the forest but rather, a very carefully constructed “Zoo of Death”.
3) more of the fun banter and the friendship between Inigo and Fezzik. Even in the scariest moments, they were still cracking poems lol
4)Westley. I wish he had more time in the book because he stole the scene in every part he was in. The way he talks, heck even thinks about Buttercup is just *chefs kiss* 😚 I’ll include one of my favorite quotes (boys, please take serious notes. If you expect to land a decent girl, then start living up to our standards):

“ “I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn that you might glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids…”

🫠 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠

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What I did not enjoy from the book:
1) the yapping. Omg the yapping. Obviously this is the special edition and it has two very lengthy introductions from the 25th and 30th anniversary editions. By lengthy I mean it was already 60 pages deep and Goldman was still talking about visiting a museum and talking to Mr Stephen King. It also has a very another very long introduction to “Buttercups Baby” included at the end of the book. It feels like they belong in a memoir rather than this book, so I did skip them.
2) Buttercup in general. I feel like she is a weak character. I love me a strong female heroine but she did not meet my expectations. When I say weak, I mean by after years of basically abusing Westley, after a seemingly innocent encounter with the Countess and a cow, she lays awake overthinking the entire ordeal (to be honest though we did get a great description of Westley 🔥) then wakes up and bangs on his door super early in the morning and declares her love for him for a page and a half. Westleys reaction is to stand there then shut the door when she’s done (can you imagine being woken up at like 5am to listen to your bully declare her undying love for you in a very dramatical way? I’d slam the door in her face too lmao), which she immediately takes to heart and runs crying through the woods about. Toughen up, buttercup 😭
3) the random details, and this is where I really appreciated Goldman stepping in and removing pages. No I don’t want to read 56 and an half pages about hats or 65 pages of Florinese trees because you were mad at a lumber company. And again with buttercup holding dying Westley, sweetie why are you thinking about trees at that exact moment?!!
4) the ending; to both Princess Bride and Buttercup’s Baby. The end of Princess Bride makes it seem they’re all going to die (thank you William Goldman and Rob Reiner for slightly twisting that into a more happy ending for the movie because 6 year old me would have been forever scarred), which to be fair was fixed in Buttercup’s Baby, but that left off on a bigger plot hole. We don’t know who kidnapped the baby, what or who “invaded” Fezzik, the random part about Inigo being in love then parting ways with the woman, and truly… did Fezzik die? I hope he didn’t 😭I love that gentle poem loving giant.

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Spice levels: 🔥🔥
I’m rating Buttercup’s Baby with a 2/5 for spice. To be honest, nothing happens. I was actually sitting reading and I didn’t realize exactly what they were doing until… well… yeah. All that’s mentioned is “experimenting” and then it’s fade to black. Obviously they had to do something to get the baby lol. What concerns me tho, and why I’m rating it a two is a rather… odd comment from buttercup during the situation. Another detail not mentioned in the movie is that Prince Humperdinck sent her to princess school for three years. And umm… to quote: “Buttercup took his strong hand. ‘My professors were all in favor of experimenting.’”
I’m sorry, what?! 💀
The Princess Bride itself is without spice, unless you count kissing and a tiny descriptive paragraph of Westleys muscles. Why couldn’t we have a full 56 and a half pages of that, I’ll never know 😭

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And I have to review the cover of this edition. It is literally so stunning. The cover itself is paperback but it is gold etched and very detailed. The pages are also sprayed, with a picture of the ship Revenge, a R.O.U.S. (“A rodent of unusual size? I don’t believe they exist.” *proceeds to be attacked by them*), and my favorite: an outline of buttercup and Westley together and the forever iconic “As you wish”.
So 5/5 for the edition itself

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So I am rating it a 3/5 (if I could I’d do a 3.5)
The three stars are mostly for William Goldman’s hard work to make this an enjoyable story, the details, etc.
Two stars removed for the plot holes and random moments.

Overall, it’s a good story. The movie is much better. In fact I’d recommend watching the movie first, then read the book. Wait… you haven’t seen the movie? INCONCEIVABLE. It’s free to stream with a Disney Plus subscription.

Or you can just do… “𝘈𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩”

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think to truly love this, you had to grew up with the movie. Which I didn't, so it was just okay-ish to me, i guess. The writing was something else, I've truly never read something like this. Also the story was good plotwise. The characters tho.. Frezzik was an absolute delight to read about. The rest, not so much. I feel like I had no time to actually fall in love with the mc's which obv doesn't help with me liking the book better.

[gabby ───.°ʚɞ ݁ ˖ {watchin w my breezy boo}]

I neeeeed this what the heck

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25⭐️

Ok honestly I loved this more than I thought I would. I expected to enjoy it, given I love the movie, but shockingly I believe that this book is made better by having watched and loved the movie.

The Princess Bride was more than just a story of a Princess, a Farm Boy, a Sicilian, a Giant, and a Spaniard. It was a joy to read, with emotional ups and downs, and depth brought both to the characters (Inigo and Fezzik’s backstories!) I’ve seen on my TV screen plenty of times and some of my favorite quotes.

“Every time you said ‘Farm Boy do this’ you thought I was answering ‘As you wish’ but that’s only because you were hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard, and you never heard.”

WG really excelled at telling a story within a story, both with the abridgement and also with how he curated this story of his dad reading the book to him and how he felt hearing it for the first time - I loved that they kept this in the film also.

Also, let’s just say I was fully caught up in WG’s abridgement comments, the changes he made to SM’s orignal manuscript, and I found myself at times wanting to read the longer version.

Spoiler alert:

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For that reason you will find me completely shocked that there is no abridgement! There is no S Morgenstern! There were never any legal battles with the estate, and he didn’t have to fight Stephen King for the right to abridge the sequel!! It was story-ception, all a literary lie! And I fell for it right to the end, googling to fin the unabridged version and who ended up having the right to abridge the sequel.

I was completely bamboozled, never expected the lie, but had a phenomenal time reading this book for the first time.

I also found it brought depth and further questions to the ending of the story - what truly was the end? WG’s father’s ending, Morgenstern’s ending, or the ending WG described but didn’t truly write?

[Queen KB · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very strange writing style for me. It kept nearly taking me out of it but if you, like me, love the movie you’ll still want to keep going. I love Inigo so much and his revenge scene still had me tearing up like in the movie. The whole Buttercup’s Baby thing was immensely odd.

3.75/5. Here’s to the “good parts”.

[Pages & Cup · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous!

[Cori van Ham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initially confusing with the blend between fiction and reality but an excellent story and unique concept of narration. Very witty and funny. A modern classic

[David Perkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of those books I always wanted to read, but never got around to. Emily got it for me for Christmas, and I’m very thankful she did. This is my favorite movie, and I’m glad to say the book is excellent as well. There’s a lot more character development in the book, specifically for Inigo and Fezzik, which I appreciated. The humor is much the same, and there’s large sections of the book that were put directly in the movie. I thoroughly enjoyed reading through this and highly recommend anyone else who loves the movie does the same.

[Lucy Paredes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a wonderful story. I like it even better than the movie as you get more backstory to characters I've loved since childhood ❤️

[Noah Merriman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not so sure about Goldman's editorializing, but credit where it is due: S. Morgenstern is an impressive storyteller.

[Julie Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had no idea this would be what it was. I DID grow up adoring this movie, so I just assumed the book would be a longer, better, more detailed version of the movie adaptation, but it wasn't at all. It was SO much more.

First, this deluxe edition is gorgeous and impossible to resist. The edges are decorated with images from the movie (the Cliffs of Insanity with Westley's ship at the base, the silhouette of the lovers with "as you wish" scrawled across the pages in a delicate script...Oh, the feelings just LOOKING at the book evokes!

The book starts with Goldman addressing the audience with a narrative about how the book came to be written and a lot of his life story thrown is (childhood and adult years) and alludes to the legal troubles he's had with the author of the original Princess Bride book his father read to him as a child as he began to write the abridged version for an American audience. Whoah! I never knew that this was an abridgment? For real? He writes about how the original was a true story, a chronicle of real historical events of the country of Florin, how he visited the museum in Florin and actually saw the giant's footprint preserved and the 6- fingered sword enshrined in a case, and how he wants to abridge the sequel, Buttercup's Baby. All of this delivered with wit that had me laughing and smiling and totally captivated. He got me, hook, line, and sinker, and if I had read this pre-internet age, it would have been quite a ride.

The story (abridgment) itself is as wonderful as expected, with hilarious asides from Goldman as he explains the decisions he made, the parts he cut out and why, how his editors and publishers are responding, etc....he even encourages you to write to his publishers asking for a part that was omitted (and people did! I would have in the 80's or 90's! What a ruse!) I've never seen anything like this before.

After the story ends (as expected), he goes on with this equally captivating story about some conflict he is having with Stephen King and the Morgenstern estate and again, you totally think this really happened and enjoy every word of it, and then he gives you the first chapter of Buttercup's Baby (which will never be written), and you close the book wondering what just happened and how the price of this book was way under its value. It's worth hundreds.

Absolutely LOVED every part of reading this novel, and I wish I could do it all over again for the first time.

[Allison Brooks Hendon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The edition was a lot of fun to read.
I went back and forth on what to rate it, and I think the overall commitment to the bit by William Goldman is what won me over. The two intros done by the author where he was still going along with Florin being a real place and S. Morgenstern being a real person was quite honestly great.
Inigo and Fezzik are my favorite characters; Buttercup is stronger than people give her credit for; and Westly needs to learn some manners.
After finishing the book, I watched the movie for the first time and I can see why people fell in love with it. But the charm really is all in the book and Goldman committing to this world he created.

[Taylor Forshee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really really enjoyed the story telling and the details kept in. I loved getting to understand more about Inigo and Fezzik with their background stories. This really would be a 5 star book but I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t read the introduction and I don’t think I’m gonna read the abridged version of buttercups baby chapters at the end. I really didn’t even mind when Goldman interjected because it felt like the movie, how his grandfather stops reading at certain points to explain stuff, but I really just don’t care to read about how Fezzik dies. He means too much to me 😭

[Michelle Cotnoir · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic! It was so entertaining, almost like watching the movie

[✨️ Cady Sutherland ✨️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 🌟

it was for the nostalgic feeling and yeah. although I didn't realize how mean Westley randomly was to Buttercup bit to be honest she was a brat at times so I guess it's fair 😂

[Sonia Koss · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 ⭐️an absolutely hilarious story 😭 it had me laughing out loud at so many different points. I can’t wait to rewatch the movie now and compare the two.. what a classic novel

[Rachel Vinar · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die"

[Emma McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s only January 4th but this will probably be my favorite read of the year. The narrative devices?? The framing?? The dialogue?? I would like to illegally download this book straight into my brain stem

[Gracie Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is beautifully written and follows one of the most engaging adventures I have ever seen in the pages of a book. I have never read anything like this before; it's truly unique. However, this uniqueness is also what prevented me from honestly giving this book a five-star rating. I acknowledge that Goldman was dabbling in satire, but I don't think it was very effective in this case. I usually love satire in literature, but I would much rather Goldman just write the story of Fezzik, Inigo, Westley, and Buttercup. Someone needs to abridge this "abridged" version of "Morgenstern's" "classic tale". I'm genuinely curious if anyone is even remotely interested in Goldman's fake life; I know I'm not. Also, the ending is so disappointing. Does Goldman really think he can get away with writing such a lazy ending by blaming it on Morgenstern (who's not real btw)? And everything after Buttercup's rescue was just stupid. It's like Goldman gave up. How did Westley's pirates know to be hiding in the exact spot the group ended up in when Fezzik took a wrong turn? Buttercup's Baby made me so angry. What do you mean Fezzik is all of a sudden a smart, nimble-fingered obstetrician? And shame on you, Goldman, for blaming the flaws in your story on a man who isn't even real! That being said, this book is goated. I would absolutely read it again. But I'd probably just only read the "good parts" :)

[Courtney Shapiro · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75
This may be one instance where I enjoy the movie adaptation more than the book. It was super cool to get the backstory into all of the characters, and I liked Goldman's writing style. I love these characters, and I enjoyed how each one got their moment to shine. It was humorous and light, which I enjoyed. The pacing was a little off for me. At times, I was flying through, and at others I felt like it was dragging. But other than that, the love story is timeless, and I love Buttercup and Westley's story.

[Aj Yogi · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 🌟

I was very excited to read this since I, of course, love the cult classic movie. I was happy to see that the style of writing is very similar to the movie style and that the movie was very close to the happenings in the book. The only two deviations I caught were that in the movie Buttercup is swarmed by shrieking eels instead of sharks, and the Pit of Despair is actually the Zoo of Death in the book.

Highly entertaining fantasy read!!

[Emma Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first time reading The Princess Bride and I can see why it’s such a beloved book. It’s funny, adventurous, harks back to the whimsical classic fairytales we all grew up with.

And to top it off, it’s sarcastic “breaking-the-fourth-wall” tone offers a unique and timeless energy to the narrative.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's cute when the kid interrupts the story in the movie but Jesus Christ it's irritating having Goldman chime in every 2-pages to give a fun fact about the fake author to the fake classic novel he is "abridging". I need an abridged version of the abridged version without the cliffnotes Will!

Still a fun book tho

[Caitlin Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite movies of all time and I’ve finally read the full text! I just adore this story so much and I loved Goldman’s inserts during the story - just an added unique element to the storytelling. Love love love this!!

[Rachel Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

After falling in love with the movie at 8 years old and getting a tattoo in its honor in my 20s, I finally got around to reading the book and it did not disappoint! The entire reading experience felt like having a beloved ongoing bit with a longtime friend

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favourite films of all time! Santa brought me this abridged version with some funny commentary. This is the rare instance when the movie is better than the book but here we are. RIP Rob Reiner, you were a legend and made these funny words on paper, come to life in a classic and whimsical fashion. Indeed a good read.

[Ada McCloud · Rating 5 out of 5]

I should start with, I love the movie and have probably seen it 50ish times. I LOVE this book. It was like putting on your favorite sweater. It is brilliantly written with humor and satire and adventure… and one day, when my future grandbaby is sick, I will pick up the book to read it to them.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that I can hardly believe I didn't get to before now. I adore the movie, have seen it multiple times, and that made it challenging to take the book at face value without comparing it. I pretty much gave up on trying not to picture the actors; it was just too hard. The story (and story within a story) was a delight, and the artwork on this edition makes it so special.

[Valerie Kolbinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
lu parce que je voulais écouter le film avec mon copain (qui veut que je l’écoute avec lui depuis quelque mois)
c’était très adventurous et pas un livre comme les autres.
Honnêtement je ne m’attendais pas à ça mais j’ai aimer l’histoire c’était assez farfelu.