The return of a beloved classic, from the bestselling author of The Princess Bride ! “This inventive, offbeat fable has a touch of magic about it.”— Los Angeles Times Once upon a time, the gondoliers of Venice possessed the finest voices in all the world. But, alas, few remember those days—and fewer still were ever blessed to hear such glorious singing. No one since has discovered the secret behind the sudden silence of the golden-voiced gondoliers. No one, it seems, but S. Morgenstern. Now Morgenstern recounts the sad and noble story of the ambitions, frustrations, and eventual triumph of Luigi, the gondolier with the gooney smile. Here, in this brilliantly illustrated exposition of the surprising facts behind this all-but-forgotten mystery, S. Morgenstern reveals the fascinating truths about John the Bastard, Laura Lorenzini, the centenarian Cristaldi the Pickle, Enrico Caruso, Porky XII, the Great Sorrento, the Queen of Corsica—and, of course, the one and only Luigi. His tale will captivate you as much as his song! “Where The Princess Bride was lightheartedly brutal, this story is gently whimsical, well-complemented by Paul Giovanopoulos’s zany drawings.”— San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle “This inventive, offbeat fable has a touch of magic about it.” — Los Angeles Times “Where  The Princess Bride  was lightheartedly brutal, this story is gently whimsical, well-complemented by Paul Giovanopoulos’s zany drawings.” — San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle The return of a beloved classic, from the bestselling author of The Princess Bride! Once upon a time, the gondoliers of Venice possessed the finest voices in all the world. But, alas, few remember those days--and fewer still were ever blessed to hear such glorious singing. No one since has discovered the secret behind the sudden silence of the golden-voiced gondoliers. No one, it seems, but S. Morgenstern. Now Morgenstern recounts the sad and noble story of the ambitions, frustrations, and eventual triumph of Luigi, the gondolier with the goony smile. Here, in this brilliantly illustrated exposition of the surprising facts behind this all-but-forgotten mystery, S. Morgenstern reveals the fascinating truths about John the Bastard, Laura Lorenzini, the centenarian Cristaldi the Pickle, Enrico Caruso, Porky XII, the Great Sorrento, the Queen of Corsica--and of course, the one and only Luigi. His tale will captivate you as much as his song! The return of a beloved classic, from the bestselling author of The Princess Bride! Once upon a time, the gondoliers of Venice possessed the finest voices in all the world. But, alas, few remember those days--and fewer still were ever blessed to hear such glorious singing. No one since has discovered the secret behind the sudden silence of the golden-voiced gondoliers. No one, it seems, but S. Morgenstern. Now Morgenstern recounts the sad and noble story of the ambitions, frustrations, and eventual triumph of Luigi, the gondolier with the goony smile. Here, in this brilliantly illustrated exposition of the surprising facts behind this all-but-forgotten mystery, S. Morgenstern reveals the fascinating truths about John the Bastard, Laura Lorenzini, the centenarian Cristaldi the Pickle, Enrico Caruso, Porky XII, the Great Sorrento, the Queen of Corsica--and of course, the one and only Luigi. His tale will captivate you as much as his song! William Goldman is an Academy Award–winning author of screenplays, plays, memoirs, and novels. His first novel, The Temple of Gold (1957), was followed by the script for the Broadway army comedy Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole (1961). He went on to write the screenplays for many acclaimed films, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and All the President’s Men (1976), for which he won two Academy Awards. He adapted his own novels for the hit movies Marathon Man (1976) and The Princess Bride (1987). Until his first day at Gondoliers School, nobody knew that Luigi was anything out of the ordinary. The reason nobody knew he was anything out of the ordinary was this: nobody really knew Luigi at all. Oh, he was popular enough. He was eighteen and slender and taller than most, with black hair and eyes. He would have been handsome except he had this smile the Italians called "tontone" which is hard to translate--there is no exact equivalent in English. The closest I can come is this this: "goony." He had a goony smile. He was strong but very gentle, and no one could ever remember his having done a mean thing since he was five and, in truth, it couldn't have been that mean, since no one could remember what exactly he did back then. "Oh, yes," his mother would say; "Luigi has a fine disposition and except for once when he was five, I have no complaints." When pressured as to what he had done she said, "Oh, something, you know how boys are." Gondoliers' School deals strictly with seamanship, and it is a three-year course. That's the minimum. Some young men ta