Princess Bride You Can Keep Reading if You Want to Meme

  Table of Contents

Title Page

Table of Contents

Copyright

Introduction to the 30th Ceremony Edition

Introduction to the 25th Anniversary Edition

Map

THE PRINCESS Helpmate

I

Two

3

4

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

BUTTERCUP'S Baby

BUTTERCUP'Southward Infant

One

Reading Group Guide

Footnotes

Copyright (c) 1973, 1998, 2003 by William Goldman

Map and reader's guide copyright (c) 2007 past Harcourt, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

or transmitted in whatsoever grade or past any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopy, recording, or whatsoever information storage and

retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to brand copies of any function of the piece of work

should be submitted online at www.harcourt.com/contact or mailed

to the following address: Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc.,

6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

www.HarcourtBooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition equally follows:

Goldman, William, 1931-

The princess helpmate: S. Morgenstern'south classic tale of true love and high take a chance/

the "good parts" version, abridged by William Goldman.

p. cm.

one. Gamble stories. I. Title.

PS3557.O384P75 2007

813'.54--dc22 2007015306

ISBN 978-0-fifteen-101544-3

ISBN 978-0-15-603515-6 (pbk.)

Text set in Adobe Caslon

Map analogy by Jeffery C. Mathison

Designed past Cathy Riggs

Printed in the United states of America

First Harvest trade edition 2007

A C Due east G I K J H F D B

Introduction to the 30th Ceremony Edition

UNTIL A COUPLE of weeks ago, this introduction would have been real short: "Why are you buying this book?" is what I would accept said. Or more than accurately, this edition of this volume?

Buy the 25th anniversary version, I would have told you. It'southward got a long intro by yours truly where I explicate a lot nigh the Morgenstern estate and the horrible legal problems I've had with them. That version is even so out at that place and what y'all are interested in is the same thing that I am interested in--namely, at last, getting Buttercup's Baby published.

I would as well take gone on to tell y'all that at that place is nada to report on that front. Same one-time same old. Well, that was then, equally they say.

Something new has very much happened.

LET ME TELL you how I kickoff heard of the beingness of the Morgenstern Museum.

Back we get to 1986, Sheffield, England, and we are shooting the movie of The Princess Helpmate. Information technology was such a happy time for me, at last Morgenstern coming to life on film. I had written the screenplay for information technology first over a decade before--but it had never been "picked up," every bit they say Out There, till then.

I commonly do not not not like being on movie sets. I once wrote that the best solar day of your life is your kickoff day on a prepare and the worst days are all the ones that follow. They are tedious and horrible for several reasons: (1) they are tedious and horrible (but you won't believe that, I know), and (ii) if you are the writer, essentially, your work is done.

I make the actors nervous, simply more than that, and if I have written this earlier, skip this part, I have an amazing ability to screw up shots. I hide on the sets out of the way when the camera rolls, but I cannot tell you how oft the director, only equally he is near to start, sees where I am and asks me to please move, because I am continuing in the verbal spot where the shot will stop.

A few days earlier the day I am most to tell yous about, nosotros were shooting the Fire Swamp. And in that location is a moment in the movie where Cary Elwes (Westley) starts to lead Robin Wright (Buttercup) through it.

Now I know what is going to happen--there is a flame spurt and her clothes catches on burn down. Why am I then smart? Because Morgenstern wrote it, I adapted it for the novel, and used it in every draft of the screenplay, of which, believe me, there were many.

OK, I am standing in that location on the set of the Burn down Swamp and Rob Reiner goes "action, Cary" and here they come into view, those 2 wonderful actors, and I am watching from a corner of the set, and he leads her frontward, one step, another step--

--at which point there is a flame spurt and her dress catches on fire.

At which indicate (and so humiliating) I start to shout, "Her dress is on burn, her dress is on fire" totally destroying the shot.

Rob yells "Cut," turns to me and in a vox I tin can still hear, he says with all the patience he can muster, "Nib, it's supposed to catch on fire."

I think I came up with something real smart similar "I knew that, lamentable" and hid.

OK, now you lot can start reading again.

The side by side night nosotros were shooting exterior, the assail on the castle, and it was common cold. Biting, British cold. The whole crew is arranged upwards, but the current of air cut in on us anyway. I remember information technology was as cold as any fourth dimension I ever had on a movie set. Everyone was freezing.

Except Andre.

I accept no way to explain this, simply Andre never got cold. Maybe it'due south a giant affair, I never asked him. But he was sitting there that night in the tights he wore and all he had on top was a very thin towel across his shoulders. (Of course, it never made it all the way across his shoulders, being a normal sized towel.) And as we talked, and I mean this now, dozens of people would walk up to him, say hello, so ask if they could become him a coat or a blanket or annihilation else to continue him warm and he would say always, "No, Boss, thanks Boss, I'm fine" and become dorsum to talking to me.

I but loved being effectually him. I am starting my fifth decade of movie madness and he was by far the most popular figure on whatever film set up I ever knew. A bunch of united states of america--Billy Crystal I remember was i--used to spitball about doing a TV series for Andre, and then he could cut downwards the three hundred plus days a year of travel wrestling required. I remember information technology was going to exist called something similar Here Comes Andre and it was going to exist about a wrestler who decided he'd had plenty and got a job as a baby-sitter.

Kids went nuts over him. Whenever I'd walk into the Burn Swamp fix, there he'd exist, one kid on his head, a couple on each shoulder, 1 in each hand. They were the children of people who worked on the moving picture and they would all sit in that location in silence, watching the shoot.

"Beeeel?" It is at present that freezing dark and I could tell from his tone, we were entering into hard terrain. He took a long pause earlier standing. "Ow doo yoo theenk, so far eees my Feh-zeeeek?"

I told him the truth, which was that I had written the part for him. Back in '41 when my begetter first read the Morgenstern to me, I naturally had no thought movies were written. They were just these things I loved going to at the Alcyon. Later, when I got in the business and adapted this for the Silver Screen, I had no idea who should play Fezzik if the picture show ever actually happened. Then one night on the tube there Andre was wrestling. He was young then, I don't think much over twenty-five.

Helen (my married woman then, the globe-famous shrink) and I are watching the tube in bed. Or rather, I am watching the tube, Helen is translating one of her books into French. I screamed--"Helen, my God, look, Fezzik."

She knew what I was talking about, knew how of import a movie of the Morgenstern was to me, understood how many times it had come close, how upset I was that it never seemingly would happen. She had tried on occasion to go me to deal with the reality, which was that the m

ovie might non get made. I remember she started to make that pitch once more, and so saw the await in my eyes as I watched Andre slaughter a bunch of bad guys.

"He'll exist great," she said, trying very hard to assure me.

AND HERE I was, a decade-plus after, chatting with this amazing Frenchman, who I will envision now and forever with little kids climbing all over him. "Your Fezzik is wonderful," I said. And it was. Yeah, his French accent was a trifle thick, but once you got used to information technology, no trouble.

"I 'ave work vairy 'aard to exist so. Thees is much more than deeper par' than Beeg-fooooot." (One of his only other non-wrestling roles was when he had played Bigfoot years before on I think a Six Million Dollar Man.) "I doo vair' much resear. For my char."

I realized right off that "char" was Andre for "graphic symbol." "What inquiry, exactly?" I figured he was going to tell me he'd read the French edition several times.

"Center clime thee cleefs."

"The Cliffs of Insanity?" I was stunned. Y'all cannot imagine how steep they are.

"Oh, oui, many times, up an downwards, upwardly an down."

"Simply Andre, what if you had fallen?"

"Center was vair scair thee firss time, but then eye know thees: Feh-zeeek would nevair sleep."

All of a sudden it was similar I was engaged in conversation with Lee Strasberg.

"An' I fight zee groops as well. Fezzik fight zee groops, Eye fight zee groups. Wuz goooood."

And then he said the crucial thing--"'ave you lot veezeet the Museum? Miee besss re-sair was zairrr."

I said I didn't know which museum he was talking nigh.

For the next little while, Andre told me....

Just did I go? Did not. Never went to Florin, never thought much about it. No, non true, I did think about information technology merely I didn't visit for one reason: I was afraid the place would disappoint me.

My first trip was when Stephen King more or less sent me there when I was researching the first chapter of Buttercup's Baby. (For an explanation, have a look at the intro to the 25 thursday Ceremony edition, you'll sympathise a lot more when y'all've read that--it's included here, on page xxix--along with the actual chapter of Buttercup's Infant, which you lot'll notice at the cease of the reprinting of The Princess Helpmate.

That first trip, I spent several days both in Florin City and the surrounding countryside, ran around like mad, saw an amazing amount of stuff--simply the Museum was closed for renovations during my stay.

Figured I'd catch it the side by side time. Whenever that might turn out to be.

It turned out to be a lot sooner than I thought.

PROBABLY You lot KNOW this, since my name was in the papers all over the world recently. I won the Grandfather of the Yr award again. I was so far in front they decided to retire the cup. Some former guy in India claimed I spoiled Willy, but sour grapes as they say.

His tenth biggie was coming up on the exterior, a great opportunity for me to go overboard on a present, and I was visiting my son, Jason, and his wife, Peggy, the other night for dinner so I asked for hints. Usually they take lists of stuff. Not this fourth dimension. They both got weird, muttered, "Yous'll come up up with something," inverse the subject.

I knocked on the kid's door, asked to come in. He quietly opened the door, odd, usually he simply hollers for me to enter. "Wanted to talk about your altogether," I told him. Here's what you've got to know--Willy's a not bad receiver. He gets so excited. Even if information technology's something he picked out himself, when I hand it over, he is and so damn great near information technology.

Now he just said I had been so terrific over the years any I wanted was fine. "Don't y'all accept any ideas at all?" I pressed. He didn't, he said. Plus he had this frantic amount of homework to do then did I listen?

I got upward to get, sat back downward over again, considering I realized something--he knew exactly what he wanted but for some reason was embarrassed to tell me.

I waited.

Willy sat at his desk in silence. Then he took a breath. And so another. At which point I knew it was coming, so I threw in "Whatever it is, the answer is yous're non going to get it."

"Well," my Willy began, the words whizzing out, "ten is a big deal in our family unit, because ten is what you were when you got sick and your pop read to yous and when my pop was ten you gave him the book which is when yous realized you had better get to work abridging and well, x is what I'yard gonna be and I'chiliad only gonna be that this one time and ... and..." and he was so embarrassed to go on I pointed to my ear and whispered, "Whisper."

Which is only what he did.

I DON'T Want to oversell here, but our first morning time in Florin City, that miraculous postdawn blink with me broad awake, Willy the Kid snoring in the next bed, was no question a highlight of my life. Me and my one and only grandchild together on the start of his 10th birthday adventure in Morgenstern'due south hometown. Can't acme that.

Willy was wiped out from the trip--Florin Air scored again--so I had to shake him awhile before his eyes opened, he blinked, went "whuh?" several times, and then joined the man race.

"Where nosotros off to?" he started, then answered himself. "Ane Tree Island, right?" I had promised him a helicopter ride there and then he could meet where Fezzik was invaded, made the incision with the sword, saved Waverly'due south life. (You lot should have listened to me earlier when I told yous to flip to the back and read the chapter of Buttercup's Baby.)

I shook my caput.

"I know I know, don't tell me--the room in the castle where Inigo killed the Count!" He bounded out of bed, started his fencing moves as he said, "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to--" and he plunged his sword forward "--DIE."

He loved doing that--he and his friends have contests to see who does information technology best--and I love that he loves it. But again, I shook my caput. "We're definitely taking the tour, simply not today."

He gestured for me to go along.

"The Morgenstern Museum opens in a piddling while, better get set."

He groaned, climbed back into bed. "Oh Granddad, please delight please, do we have to starting time with a museum, I detest museums, yous know I detest museums."

"You lot liked the Hall of Fame." I took him up to Cooperstown last summer.

"That'south baseball."

"I have to go," I said. "Fair is fair. Y'all knew this trip was planned."

The truth? I was nigh to tell him to go dorsum to sleep. In that location was no real reason I couldn't get the introduction to the Museum done lonely.

Only I said nothing, and thank You up there for that.

THE MORGENSTERN MUSEUM is just left off Florin Foursquare. Information technology's a lovely sometime mansion, dating from who knows how far back, and by the time we got there Willy was excited again, his usual country, bopping alee of me on the sidewalk. He held the door open for me, bowed me through--

--then he went "omigod" and stopped dead. Considering in forepart of him, in the center of the stately sometime room, in a large and beautifully lit glass example, there it was--

--the 6-fingered sword.

I knew information technology was there, Andre had told me virtually it, he had told me in particular that freezing night in Sheffield--

--but I still was not close to existence gear up for the impact it had on me. I'd heard of information technology for and then long, asked my begetter all those decades ago when I was ten, what fabricated it then special, so magical, what could it have looked like?--

--and now there it was. Inigo'southward father had died for it, Inigo's whole life had been changed because of it, this magical blade, the greatest sword since Excalibur.

Willy took my manus and together we walked toward information technology and I know it makes no sense, but right and so, as I saw it for the very first time, it seemed to be dancing.

"Is it moving?" Willy whispered. "Information technology sure looks similar it is."

"I call back it'due south the way they've got it lit. Just you're correct."

At that place were a agglomeration of others surrounding the example, kids, old folks, all kinds, and what was weird was when we looked at it, no one went away, we just kind of went to the next side, looked at the sword from there, then the tertiary, finally the last.

A kid style smaller than Willy whispered in a French accent to a lady who I assume was his mother, "Allo, monday nom est Eenigo Mawn-taw-ya..."

/>   "Sounds manner better in English," Willy whispered and I realized something: All around the glass muzzle I could see children miming the sword, mouthing Morgenstern'south words, and I'yard not sure when the Museum put up its various exhibits--

--but what a thing information technology would have been if the corking human being himself could accept seen what I was seeing now.

The adjacent exhibit that took the Kid's caput off was a mold of Fezzik's fingers. (Andre went on and on nigh information technology--he thought his were the biggest, he told me, till he saw the real thing.) Willy measured with cracking intendance. "His thumb is bigger than my whole mitt," he announced. I nodded. It was.

And then a whole wall lined with Fezzik's dress, beautifully pressed. Willy just stared up at where the behemothic'due south head would have been, shook his own head in wonder.

Buttercup'southward wedding dress was adjacent, but information technology was hard to get up to because of all the girls who were surrounding it.

There was so much to see--an pointer pointed to another room where Count Rugen's life-sucking motorcar was off by itself--but I was anxious to get to the Curator--Stephen King had written him a letter of the alphabet about my inflow.

The Curator would let me into the place I near needed to get--the Sanctuary, information technology was called, and it was where Morgenstern'southward letters and notes were kept. It was not open up to the public, scholars only, but that's what I was on this mean solar day of days.

I asked a few questions, was directed hither, there, then finally nosotros found the Curator--younger than y'all might call back, obviously vivid, and behind his optics there was a genuine sweetness.

He was seated at his desk on the 3rd-flooring corner. Volume-lined function, no surprise, and equally we entered he glanced up, smiled.

"Probably y'all want the fiddling boys' room," he began. "It's just one door down. Nigh of my visitors are interested in that."

I smiled, said who I was and that I had come all the style from America to written report in the Sanctuary for a while.

"But that'southward not possible," the Curator replied. "It is open only for work of scholarship."

"William Goldman," I said again. "Stephen King wrote a letter about my coming."

"Mister King is a famous descendent of my state, of that at that place tin can be no question, but there is no letter."

(You must know this well-nigh me--I can be very paranoid at moments like this. This next is true--when I was a judge at the Cannes Film Festival I was invited to a formal dinner party. It was a big deal for me, my marriage was collapsing, I was going to be alone in the world for the first fourth dimension since forever, and I got to the party where everyone spoke all kinds of languages, few of them English. There were three round tables set up, fortunately with place cards and when we were told it was time to sit down, I left my place alone in the corner and went whizzing effectually the first table.

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