Goldman certainly never wrote one, but that wasn’t the point. Thousands of people dutifully wrote in, who helped oblige Goldman in his trickery and multi-level storytelling. Goldman does, however, tell the reader that they can get the scene he wrote mailed to them if they write to the book’s publisher, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. But it’s not in the book, Goldman explains, because the publisher wouldn’t allow him to put words into the great Morgenstern’s mouth. Only once does he mention writing his own scene, a powerfully emotional reunion scene between the story’s hero, Wesley, and his true love, Buttercup. The book is peppered with interruptions from Goldman, telling the reader what he left out of the original text.

Morgenstern isn’t real, Florin isn’t real, and Goldman never even had a son. Goldman wrote the only Princess Bride there ever was. He’s a legendary Florinese author, and his original take on the story was an epic tale, the published, long out-of-print version of which was gigantic and extremely long, from which Goldman edited to present his book, or as he calls it “the good parts.” Goldman also details how he hoped the gift of the Morgenstern volume would please his loathsome son. Goldman, he writes of himself in the book’s lengthy preamble, didn’t write The Princess Bride S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. The full title of the novel is The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern,” Goldman’s book really explores that notion. While in the movie Grandpa mentions that his story is “ The Princess Bride, by S. The book was told in a far more clever, far funnier way, too impossible to film. The movie is presented as a story being told by an old man (Columbo) to his sick grandson (Kevin Arnold). Most of this occurs within Goldman’s framing device. All the great fairy tale stuff and smart humor from the movie is there, but so is a large amount of inconceivable (see what I did there?) dark comedy, meta storytelling, and just overall gleeful-fucking-with-the-readerness.

The Princess Bride is best known as a classic, perfect movie from 1987, but the original novel by William Goldman published in 1973 should be checked out, have you never done so. Photo: 20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

The princess bride book s morgenstern