The Bartered Bride romantic comedy. Thus on its opening night the opera, in its two-act version with spoken dialogue, was poorly attended and indifferently received. Receipts failed to cover costs, and the theatre director was forced to pay Smetana's fee from his own pocket. Smetana's friend Josef Srb-Debrnov, who was unable to attend the performance himself, canvassed opinion from members of the audience as they emerged. "One praised it, another shook his head, and one well-known musician ... said to me: 'That's no comic opera; it won't do. The opening chorus is fine but I don't care for the rest.'" Josef Krejčí, a
The Princess Bride by Goldman himself. William Goldman said, "I've gotten more responses on "The Princess Bride" than on everything else I've done put together—all kinds of strange outpouring letters. Something in "The Princess Bride" affects people." A segment of the book was published as "Duel Scene (From "The Princess Bride")" in the anthology "The Best of All Possible Worlds" (1980), which was edited by Spider Robinson. In 2015, a collection of essays on the novel and the film adaptation was published entitled "The Princess Bride and Philosophy". In a Renaissance-era world, a young woman named Buttercup lives on a farm in the