The Dark Princess

by Richard Jerome Kennedy, Donna Diamond

A princess whose radiant beauty blinds her and all who look upon her finds only one man willing to submit to her test for suitors--the court fool.

Genres: Fantasy, Fairy Tales

32 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Richard Jerome Kennedy (b. 1932) is an American children's book author.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of odd, more like a short story with illustrations than a picture books for kids.

Once upon a time, there was a middle aged guy in a high-necked sweater who met a Renn Faire lady...

Wait, that's just the first illustration, sorry.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess. So beautiful than everyone who looked at her directly went blind. Including herself! She was also blinded, but her parents made her keep this a secret and use a seeing-eye dog. No one knew she was blind, so they just thought she was stuck-up and ignoring them. (Great plan, mom and dad!)

Eventually the king discovered that a piece of colored glass prevented princess-looking-blindness. Then all the princes showed up with their colored glasses and fell in love with her. When they plighted their respective troths, the princess asked each one to go blind to prove his love to her, but none of them would. So she decided there was no such thing as love, until one day she happened to be talking to the jester by the cliffs over the ocean and found out he really loved her and he went blind for her and then they both fell off the cliffs and were dead as well as blind. But together! Romance?



The illustrations are a very 70s take on Pre-Raphaelite.

[Simone · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting short story. It didn’t go to a place that I expected, and it was a bit darker than I thought it would be. I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing style, though.

[Jennifer Larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I treasure this book. I come across it again every once in awhile and every time I read it, it takes my breath away.

It’s a myth, describing things as they are at the soul level. The reviewers making fun of the story are missing the point: What is Love? What kind of seeing does Love require? What is it about the Fool that can recognize and give himself so spontaneously and completely to Love? And the result?! The final page knocks my socks off every time.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read twice now, feel like I should love, but just can't quite. Kennedy's done some other good work though; he's worth reading though hard to find (at least the juveniles?).