On a totally-out-of-left-field note, I just saw that my copy of The Princess Bride has the cover pasted on backwards and upside down. I wonder how many other people got the joke-shop version like mine.(Aside -- did you know that Robert Browning's first book of poems didn't sell one copy? True. Even his mother didn't buy it at her local bookstore. Have you ever heard of anything more humiliating? How would you like to have been Browning and it's your first book and you have these secret hopes that now, now, you'll be somebody. Established, Important. And you give it a week before you ask the publisher how things are going, because you don't want to seem pushy or anything. And then maybe you drop by, and it was probably all very English and understated in those days, and you're Browning and you chitchat around a bit, before you drop the biggie. 'Oh, by the way, any notions yet on how my poems might be doing?' And then, his editor, who has been dreading the moment, probably says, 'Well, you know how it is with poetry these days; nothing's taking off like it used to, requires a bit of time for the word to get around.' And then finally, somebody had to say it. 'None, Bob. Sorry, Bob, no, we haven't yet had one authenticated sale. We thought for a bit that Hatchards had a potential buyer down by Piccadilly, but it didn't quite work out. Sorry, Bob; of course we'll keep you posted in the event of a breakthrough.' End of Aside.)
For anyone who's only seen the movie, if you have a love of writing and you enjoyed the story from the movie, I think you'll find the book is even better. If you haven't seen the movie, this is one of those rare cases where you can experience them in either order and it won't change how good each is.
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