About this item
William Goldman's modern fantasy classic is a simple, exceptional story about quests - for riches, revenge, power, and, of course, true love - that's thrilling and timeless. Anyone who lived through the 1980s may find it impossible - inconceivable, even - to equate The Princess Bride with anything other than the sweet, celluloid romance of Westley and Buttercup, but the film is only a fraction of the ingenious storytelling you'll find in these pages. Rich in character and satire, the novel is set in 1941 and framed cleverly as an "abridged" retelling of a centuries-old tale set in the fabled country of Florin that's home to "Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passions."
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 , 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 to the , which marked his re-entry into screenwriting. Goldman won two Academy Awards: an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay for , and an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for . He also won two Edgar Awards, from the Mystery Writers of America, for Best Motion Picture Screenplay: for in 1967, and for (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.
