It’s been many years since I read The Princess Bride. In the novel, the narrator shortens the supposed source book to “the good parts version” so that his son will enjoy the story, just as his own father did for him.
Anyway, there’s a scene that he does not include – I’m 90% certain it’s when Wesley and Buttercup are reunited. The narrator says though that if you send to the publisher (I think with a SASE) they’d send you the scene. A college friend of mine sent in, but I don’t think she ever got anything.
So did anyone here send in fot he scene and get a copy of it?
I couldn’t believe the “missing scene” hadn’t been discussed here before, but my cursory review of the threads didn’t find it.
It was (gulp!) about 50 years ago that my friend told me she’d sent for the scene. Even today, it didn’t strike me as impossible that readers would actually get the scene – although I was not a bit surprised that she apparently didn’t get anything.
Several years after the movie, I was talking with a friend who read the book and recommended it. He told me, however, that early editions of the book had the author’s asides printed in red. When the movie came out, new editions of the book were printed that had the asides in italics. I decided to be fastidious about it and started checking used bookstores to try to find the early version.
And I did; at Powell’s in Portland, I’m pretty sure. On a bit of a lark, I sent in for the missing scene. It was ages ago, but I think the letter was returned as undeliverable. I checked the newer printing and the address was different. I assume that the publisher moved to new offices over the years.
More recent editions of the book instruct you to go to a website and enter in your email address instead. The response you get, which I assume is the same as what they used to send out, is Goldman talking about how he couldn’t publish the reunion scene after all because the Morgenstern estate objected.
I’m really amazed by all the people (not just Dopers) who assume that if you wrote in to get the scene that meant you didn’t get the joke.
I was a college student when I first read The Princess Bride, and I knew from the get-go that there was no S. Morgenstern. Hell, Goldman was already a pretty popular novelist when TPB was published – I know for a fact I had already read Boys and Girls Together, and I may have read another or two of his books.
But, still, they included that “write in to get the scene” bit when they certainly didn’t need to. So of course I wondered if those people who did got anything in return. I wasn’t so curious as to spring for a first class stamp at the time, but Katie was – and I wasn’t at all surprised that she purportedly got nothing in return.
In reading the link that Andy_L provided, it seems that you did not have to send a SASE. Now I’m wondering how many letters the publishers sent out. Sure they made a boatload of money off TPB, but they had some costs associated with the bit, not just the postage but staff costs to address and stuff the return envelope, etc. I’m picturing some hapless intern who is told on the first day, “We’re putting you on The Princess Bride Deleted Scene detail.”
Looking back on this book (which I considered mildly funny but nothing special; honestly, even with all the omissions the movie told a much better story), I’m a bit stunned as to the outrageous extremes William Golding went to preserve the transparently bogus mythos he invented about this book. No, of course Simon and Mrs. Morgenstern never existed, no, of course none of the other people he mentioned existed, no, of course there’s no such place as “Florin”, no, of course there was never any 600-goddam-pages-long “unedited version”. Remember Cecil Adams? A cute Santa Claus figure that a small, dedicated group of fans got so completely wedded to, they continue to swear on their souls that he’s real long after everyone else got completely tired of the joke.
I knew that sending for the deleted scene would be a blind alley. It’d be like asking for a translation of the Voynich Manuscript or a scientific explanation of how Strong Bad’s glove-hands work. What I’m interested in (to the extent that I can muster any interest about an author who’s been dead for two decades) is why Golding never came clean. If he was some punk kid or a hack and this was the only way he could get anyone to care about him, I’d understand, but this was a very highly respected author. Saying point-blank that he made everything up, there wasn’t anything more to the story, it was all just a big lark, don’t you have a big lark every so often, wouldn’t have damaged his reputation, and it would’ve saved his publishing company a ton of grief.
It’s not like Goldman invented the “literary agent” trope. The idea that the book is a “just the good parts” version of some dry lost 18th century satire is a big part of the fun, and keeping up the pretense makes it easier for the reader to suspend their disbelief and get lost in the metanarrative. Just like how pro wrestlers usually stay in character for public appearances and media events even though everyone over the age of ten knows they’re playing a character and the outcome of the match they’re hyping is predetermined.
Note that Goldman didn’t have a son, either - so he didn’t have a disappointing son whi didn’t like the unexpurgated novel (the bookstore is real - I’ve been there)
Ooop! Read the book once, saw the movie (N…) times. Huge fan of Goldman here, going back to high school, and much preferred the movie. Goldman had an opportunity to fix his story. Thank you.