As a child sick with pneumonia, William Goldman’s father read him a book titled The Princess Bride, which inspired Goldman’s love of reading. Grown up and with a writing career and a son of his own, Goldman gives a copy of this book to his son as a birthday present — only to realize his father had been skipping whole chapters, thinking they would be boring for a 10-year-old.
Goldman sets out to write an abridged version of The Princess Bride, leaving only the exciting parts so that his son can enjoy it, too. This idea runs throughout the book, occasionally interrupting the narrative with comments about the publishing industry, Goldman’s childhood memories and his personal life.
Buttercup is a beautiful young girl who lives on a farm in the European country of Florin. After several years, she realizes she’s in love with Westley, the quiet farmhand who has served her father for many years. Upon professing her love, Westley makes plans to move to America, in order to make enough money and have enough land to provide for Buttercup as his wife. Not long after he leaves, however, Buttercup learns that the Dread Pirate Roberts captured Westley’s ship — and the Dread Pirate Roberts takes no prisoners.
The King of Florin is very old and his health declining. His son, Prince Humperdinck, makes plans to marry and, eventually, have a son who will take his place. At first, he plans to marry the princess from the neighboring country of Guilder, but upon learning the princess is bald, he decides to marry a girl from Florin — any girl, so long as she has hair.
Hearing of Buttercup’s beauty, Humperdinck finds her on her father’s farm and demands that she marry him. Buttercup, emotionally stunted since Westley’s death, stresses that she does not and will never love Humperdinck, but agrees to marry him, rather than risk death by denying the prince.
Buttercup spends the next few years at princess school, growing in beauty and knowledge. The evening after she is officially introduced to the people of Florin, she is kidnapped by three men: a devious Sicilian plotting war; a quiet Spaniard seeking vengeance against the man who killed his father; and a giant Turk who, for all his strength, is gentle.
The reader quickly learns that the trio has been hired to frame Guilder for Buttercup’s murder, thereby starting a war between Guilder and Florin. The Spaniard, Inigo, and the Turk, Fezzik, don’t want to hurt Buttercup, but both of them have their reasons for following Vizzini: He’s smart, and neither one of them can figure out how to get what they want without him.
Despite Vizzini’s best-laid plans to get Buttercup to Guilder undetected, a man in black follows the trio. This man bests Inigo in fencing, defeats Fezzik in a test of strength and tricks Vizzini into poisoning himself. The man in black treats Buttercup cruelly at first as they run from Humperdinck, an excellent hunter who pursues Buttercup as soon as she is discovered kidnapped.
The man in black turns out to be Westley, alive after all. He explains how he had befriended Roberts, who eventually retired and gave Westley the title of “Dread Pirate Roberts.” His pirate ship waits to take them away from Florin and into their new lives together, but Humperdinck catches them before they can escape.
Buttercup chooses to return to Humperdinck rather than die with Westley, insisting that the prince return Westley to his ship. Humperdinck agrees, but instead brings Westley to his Zoo of Death, a five-level subterranean zoo that houses all manner of animals the prince likes to hunt. Westley is tortured in the zoo for months. He is eventually placed on a machine that sucks life out of its victims, and painfully, he dies.
As Buttercup, Humperdinck, and the rest of the country continue making plans for the royal wedding, Buttercup begins to regret leaving Westley. He had risked everything to find her, but she had left him anyway. Since his death, she hadn’t allowed herself to truly feel anything, but soon realizes she never stopped loving Westley. She tells Humperdinck that she’d rather die than marry anyone but Westley.
Humperdinck lies to Buttercup and assures her that he will send messengers to Westley in order to bring him back to Florin. The reader learns that Humperdinck had hired Vizzini to kidnap Buttercup in the first place in order to start the war with Guilder, and since that failed, he plans to murder Buttercup after the wedding. During this time — between Westley’s death, Humperdinck’s plotting and the idea that true love will not win the day — the Goldman offers several lengthy passages about the unfairness of life.
Without Vizzini, Inigo can’t formulate a plan to find the six-fingered man who killed his father. In despair, he turns to drink. The day of Buttercup and Humperdinck’s wedding, Fezzik finds Inigo and nurses him back to health. Fezzik explains that Count Rugen, Humperdinck’s confidant, is the six-fingered man whom Inigo has sought for 20 years. Inigo, knowing he can’t make a plan on his own, searches for Westley, the man in black who outwitted Vizzini. He and Fezzik storm the Zoo of Death, only to find Westley (at this point, only recently) dead.
Undeterred, Inigo and Fezzik take Westley to Miracle Max, an out-of-work sorcerer who can temporarily raise people from the dead. They ask for a one-hour spell — just enough time to stop the wedding and kill Count Rugen — but Max, a little rusty on making miracles, realizes after they leave that the spell will only last for 45 minutes.
In spite of the time constraints, the three defeat the 100 men guarding the palace; Inigo kills Count Rugen, at last; Westley rescues Buttercup, although by now she is technically married to Humperdinck; and Fezzik finds a way for them to escape. When the spell wears off, Westley prays for the strength to keep living. He declares he will never die, even as he begins to fade again, with Humperdinck hot on their trail. S. Morgenstern’s narrative ends here, but Goldman adds how he thinks the story ought to end, repeating again that life is not fair.