How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
Everybody is familiar with the movie with Carey Elwes, Andre the Giant, and Mandy Patinkin. And I’m not really sure how many times I’ve heard the line “Hello, my name is Inigo Mantoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
But, you may be surprised to know that the book is just as good, if not better, than the movie. There are some substantial differences, despite the fact that William Goldman wrote both the book and movie script. For example: the Pit of Despair doesn’t exist in the book. Instead it’s called the Zoo of Death. And some of the plot holes of the movie are explained in the book. Like how Inigo knows ‘the man in black’ is Westley.
The book came into being in the 70’s when Goldman’s two daughters gave him conflicting ideas for his next project. One said she wanted a story about a princess, the other a bride. In Goldman’s genius he combined them and even threw in a reference to the Vietnam War. 
The movie took years to come into being, mostly because all the studios that wanted to film it went bankrupt before filming could begin. Fickle industry, Hollywood. But, an interesting tidbit about the book was that even for the novel, Goldman envisioned Andre the Giant as Fezzik. And don’t worry. Inigo’s famous line DOES come directly from the book. You can’t get any better than that as a line for revenge.
