The basis of the story is a love affair. The hero
is Westley, a poor boy who falls in love with a beau-
tiful girl and she, Buttercup, with him, though nei-
ther admits it. She at least perhaps does not
recognize the truth until later in the story. The boy
sails off to make his fortune and is captured and re-
portedly killed by pirates, after which the girl
mourns for many years before reluctantly agreeing
to marry the local ruler, Prince Humperdinck. His
plans are more nefarious, however. He plots her ab-
duction and death even before they are married,
hoping to use this as an excuse to launch an expan-
sionist war against an otherwise peaceful neighbor.
To carry out his plan, Humperdinck has hired
three dubious characters—Fezzik, reportedly the
strongest man in the world, Inigo, the world’s
greatest swordsman, and Vizzini, who believes him-
self the most intelligent man alive. They success-
fully carry off Buttercup, but a mysterious figure
follows, defeating each of them in turn and each in
their own specialty. Rescued, Buttercup recognizes
him as Westley, who has taken over the identity of
the now-retired pirate who captured him, and who
initially spurns her, believing her to have been dis-
loyal to his memory. Humperdinck captures them
both and seems on the verge of victory when two
of his former adversaries free Westley and help
save the day.
The captive-turned-pirate, the forced mar-
riage, the series of trials Westley undergoes, and
other plot elements would have seemed overly fa-
miliar by a less-skilled hand, but Goldman’s light,
amusing treatment makes them fresh and interest-
ing. The Princess Brideis a fairy tale for modern
readers. The 1987 film version was from Gold-
man’s own screenplay and is, unsurprisingly, very
loyal to the original book.
Pullman, Philip(1946– )
Philip Pullman’s early novels during the 1970s and
1980s were a mixture of mainstream and often
vaguely fantastic elements, although the only clear
fantasy title is Count Karlstein(1982), a children’s
book in which a great hunt is conducted at the in-
stigation of a demon. Most of his other novels from
this period were young adult suspense stories set
during the 19th century, many of which hinted at
without being explicit about darker, magical under-
tones. Spring Heeled Jack(1989) came the closest
to being fantasy and hinted at the complexity that
would become evident with the His Dark Materi-
als trilogy, which was loosely patterned after the
works of John Milton.
The trilogy opened with THE GOLDEN COM-
PASS(1995, also published as The Northern Lights).
The initial setting is an alternate version of con-
temporary England, a magical variant reality where
every child is paired with a shape-shifting demon
that will not assume its final form until its partner
reaches maturity, at which point its appearance is
dictated by the character of the other. The cast of
very well-realized characters is expanded and de-
veloped in THE SUBTLE KNIFE(1997) and the con-
cluding volume, THE AMBER SPYGLASS(2000), but
only after a series of adventures, quests fulfilled,
betrayals, revelations, encounters with ghosts, and
other adventures. The trilogy is unusually complex
stylistically for young adult literature but was enor-
mously successful nonetheless. “Lyra’s Oxford”
(2003), published as a chapbook, is related to the
trilogy.
Pullman’s most recent fantasy novel is consid-
erably less ambitious. I Was a Rat(2002) is about a
young boy who insists that he has spent part of his
life as a rat. Pullman has also written occasional
short fantasy fiction and an adaptation of Mary
SHELLEY’SFRANKENSTEIN(1818) for the stage. The
dramatic success of His Dark Materials has raised
expectations for Pullman’s subsequent work. To
date he seems content to produce lighter fantastic
fare, although his nonfantastic Sally Lockhart tril-
ogy, set in the slums of 19th-century London, is a
superior young adult mystery sequence.282 Pullman, Philip