the last unicorn book reviews

One of the Best Fantasy Novels Ever Is Nothing Like The Lord of the Rings

In The Last Unicorn , there are no maps, invented languages, or epic battles. But the 1968 tale has a timely message about the importance of reality over magic.

I encountered the cover of Peter S. Beagle’s fantasy novel The Last Unicorn years before I read the book. On the front of the Ballantine paperback edition that once sat on my parents’ shelf, there’s a white unicorn running in a forest as a small red sun sets behind the mountains. Where was this majestic creature going? I wondered.

It’s now been 50 years since the novel’s publication, and the unicorn’s journey still captures the minds and hearts of readers. This week marks the release of The Last Unicorn: The Lost Journey , a commemorative edition of Beagle’s first draft of the novel. The book’s early popularity was no doubt fueled by the Tolkien boom; J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings found legions of fans in the United States after it appeared in a paperback edition in 1965. But The Last Unicorn has since come into its own. In 1982, the novel was made into an animated film , which has become something of a cult classic. A novelette sequel that Beagle published in 2005 won both the Nebula and the Hugo Awards—the fantasy genre’s two highest honors. After all these years, The Last Unicorn still feels relevant. It’s not an epic fantasy, but a softer tale at the boundaries of magic and reality, that place where one grapples with what it means to be human.

To read Tolkien’s works, to watch Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of them, or to become hooked on HBO’s Game of Thrones , based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books, is to be transported to another world. These fantasies take place in what Tolkien, in his essay “ On Fairy Stories ,” calls “a Secondary World … commanding Secondary Belief.” According to Tolkien, fantasies ought to be set in a compelling alternate reality.

The internal consistency of the imagined fantasy world—or in Tolkien’s language, the world’s “sub-creation”—is vitally important. Indeed, one can track the path of the Fellowship of the Ring day by day as they journey toward Mordor across a land so gloriously detailed that it seems real. Although Middle Earth is an invented place, its history now spans more than 12 volumes and, until this year , was still being written. The grittiness and verisimilitude of Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, with its politics, intrigue, and gruesome deaths, is all-consuming. The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire are works of escapism, doors through which one can enter the perilous realm and not emerge for days.

In The Last Unicorn , there are no maps, invented languages, genealogies, or epic battles. Instead, there is just the nameless unicorn in her “lilac wood,” where “she had no idea of months and years and centuries.” There she would no doubt have stayed forever, if not for the stray remark of passing travelers who speculate that there are no more unicorns left in the world. So the unicorn sets out to find others of her kind, who she soon learns are being held captive by the miserly King Haggard and the mysterious Red Bull. Along the way, she acquires traveling companions: the hapless magician Schmendrick and the bitter Molly Grue. Together, and with the unicorn in disguise (I’ll leave this point vague to avoid spoiling the story), the trio faces the Bull and the intrigues of Haggard’s court, which for the unicorn include the unwanted affections of the king’s adopted son, Prince Lir.

So far, the novel might sound like many fantasies, and in a certain sense it is. There’s not only a unicorn, but also ogres, dragons, and a harpy. But there’s little consistency as to which fantasy elements fit within the rules of the universe and which don’t. The novel’s world is a hodgepodge of magical creatures and moments without much backstory. The land’s geography is incomplete. Readers know about the existence of the unicorn’s forest, Haggard’s castle, and a few places between those two locations, but not much else. There’s magic, to be sure, but even the wizard Schmendrick has no idea how it works and can’t control it. This is unlike popular recent fantasies that showcase complex magical systems that work according to specific rules; Patrick Rothfuss’s The Kingkiller Chronicle series and Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series come to mind. (Rothfuss, by the way, calls The Last Unicorn “the best book I have ever read.”) By modern standards at least, Beagle’s story is missing some essential world-building.

The Last Unicorn is also littered with anachronisms. It’s chock-full of modern-day references and colloquialisms that pull the reader right out of the invented world—a bricolage that would shock the consummate sub-creator Tolkien. Only 10 pages in, a butterfly talks about taking the A train and quotes the Bible. Molly Grue is part of a band of merry-folk living in a greenwood who know the legend of Robin Hood and speak about Francis Child, a 19th-century collector of English ballads. Schmendrick—whose name more or less means “foolish” in Yiddish—is “the last of the red-hot swamis,” which is a term for Hindu monastics. T. H. White’s 1958 retelling of Arthurian legend, The Once and Future King , also contains frequent anachronisms, but in that story Merlyn is living his life backwards through time. The Last Unicorn offers no explanation for its forays into modernity.

These anachronisms blur the boundary between Beagle’s invented fantasy world and the readers’ real one. But the tension between magic and reality goes deeper still. In the story, the unicorn is real, but few can recognize her for what she is. In the towns she passes, people take her instead for a white mare. When the witch Mommy Fortuna captures and displays the unicorn in her Midnight Carnival toward the beginning of the story, she needs to put a spell on her captive so that people will be able to see a unicorn and not a horse. A fantasyland whose denizens require illusion to see the magic in front of them is one where magic is largely forgotten.

The novel’s prose also reflects a certain uneasy liminality where nothing is quite as it seems and there are no hard-and-fast rules. Schmendrick, describing the Red Bull, says:

I know less than I have heard, for I have heard too many tales and each argues with another. The Bull is real, the Bull is a ghost, the Bull is Haggard himself when the sun goes down. The Bull was in the land before Haggard, or it came with him, or it came to him … The Bull belongs to Haggard. Haggard belongs to the Bull.

This lush, lyrical, and dreamy stream-of-consciousness writing works a magic of its own.

Among the characters, there are no archetypes, no absolutes. Haggard is no Sauron—he commands no armies; he wears chain mail made of bottle caps. There is something melancholy and tragic about Haggard’s quest to hold the immortal unicorns. Even in his success, he is unhappy. The novel’s contest between good and evil is layered in hues of gray. Sparks of humanity remain in everyone.

Beagle frequently subverts fantasy tropes. Prince Lir tries to win the unicorn’s heart by deeds of derring-do, but she is unimpressed. In fact, Lir does not end up with the unicorn. And in the novel, mortality is preferable to immortality; Haggard, who quests after immortality, is defeated. Schmendrick’s greatest wish is to end the curse of immortality placed on him by his mentor. The unicorn, in a brief brush with mortality, gains the ability to regret, and she is better off for it. In The Last Unicorn , it’s the earthly things, the things that make one human, that are the things worth having.

Remarkably, the book shifts away from the unicorn as it progresses. In the beginning there’s nothing but her, but by the end, readers no longer hear her internal monologue. She has ceased being the protagonist; that role has been passed to her human companions. It’s as if Beagle is weaning his audience off unicorn magic, preparing them for reentry into the real world as the story concludes. Unless, of course, the unicorn’s world, with all its modern trappings, is the real one to begin with. In the end, the true nature of the world Beagle created is as indeterminate as that of the Red Bull itself.

And perhaps all of this is why The Last Unicorn is a fantasy for these times. The novel doesn’t take place in a believable alternate world with clear rules and boundaries, but in a messy one more akin to ours. It’s not epic fantasy, but applied fantasy—which is to say, readers aren’t supposed to get lost in its invented world. We are supposed to import its lessons to our own world. In this uncertain age, when truth and falsehood are just rapidly converging talking points on the same blurry continuum, and wishful thinking is hopelessly mixed up with reality, The Last Unicorn urges audiences to do the things that need doing anyway, muddling through as best we can.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle

I'm quite honestly surprised I haven't come across Peter S Beagle's The Last Unicorn before now. After all, as a fantasy loving child of the eighties I should at least have seen the animated film, even if the usual bugbear; lack of audio availability, kept me from reading the novel that inspired it. Fortunately, one of the happier consequences for me of the digital revolution is an access to media, both audiobooks and animated, that I hadn't experienced before, so this is a lack we can easily fix, and (as indeed several characters in this book prove), one is never too old for tales about unicorns.

The unicorn has lived alone longer than she can remember, taking her endless time as it comes, walking beneath the summer trees of her wood, blessing the land with her presence, and occasionally letting herself be glimpsed by mortals. She doesn't think to question anything, because unicorns just are. All this changes however when she overhears a hunter in her wood describing her as the last unicorn in the world, and sets out to find out what has become of the rest of her kind.

Gathering companions along the way such as Schmendrick, the world’s worst magician, and Molly Grue, a lady looking for a new life, the unicorn will confront monsters both human and inhuman, becoming the object of greed, avarice and even love, and find that ultimately the only way of avoiding the terrifying fate that has befallen the rest of her kindred is to change her unchangeable self.

The first and most obvious thing about The Last Unicorn, is that the book is as much poetry as prose. Published in 1968, a time when descriptive writing wasn't so often dismissed as unnecessary filler, the book's style is simply gorgeous, combining simile and metaphor with fairy tale language and emotional honesty into true word painting. It is easy to see why writers such as Patrick Rothfuss and Neil Gaiman count Beagle's book as a favourite; citing it as a heavy influence in their own work. Also like Gaiman, Beagle is able to drift from the mundane, to the fantastic, to the terrifying with consummate ease. Despite the very protagonist and title character of the novel being a fantastic creature whose wonder and beauty is a major point in the story, it's a testament to Beagle's skills as a wordsmith that I never felt his descriptions of the unicorn's unearthly appearance became overly florid. Also, like Gaiman, Beagle is able to switch subject matter and apply his descriptive gifts equally to the fantastic, horrific or even the mundane, able to show how flawed, human and frequently even plane characters such as Molly were, yet never be dismissive of their qualities, making their very flaws something almost admirable.

Speaking of characters, I admired the way that nobody here is quite what they seem on the surface. Schmendric for example meets the unicorn when he frees her from captivity, the act of a seemingly decent person, yet at times can be arrogant, a little mean and (in his pursuit of bettering his magic), even occasionally completely self-regarding, if not actually selfish. Molly Grue meanwhile, far from being the kindly princess or naïve young girl we'd expect in a tale about unicorns, is actually a seasoned woman in her thirties whose already been disappointed by life, and whose wonder at the unicorn is tinged with regret. These nuanced depictions even go as far as having the soldiers of a wicked king prove to be more than faceless minions, and the wicked king himself being as pitiable, as he is villainous.

Then again, Beagle never lets his desire to be fair to his characters turn him too far away from being epic, indeed the monsters in this book are truly as monstrous as the wonderful creatures are full of wonder, as of course they should be, since what is any fairy tale without its light and shadow.

Unfortunately, Beagle does fall into the trap that many heavily descriptive writers, from Erin Morgenstern to Mervin Peake have before, and get to the point where it is the poetry, not the actual force of the events in the plot or the pace of the writing that carries matters forward. Of course, this isn't to say the book doesn't contain surprising ideas to explore, such as a town of people cursed to prosperity who still lived severely austere lives since they were so afraid their prosperity would end, or a magical menagerie caught somewhere between shoddy trickery and Lovecraftian reality. However, amazing though many ideas are, they usually just seemed strung together like pictures in a gallery with an on running theme, or different movements of the same symphony rather than the careful stone by stone building necessary to create a really tight plot. Of course, part of this is just the nature of fairy tales, after all there is no other genre of stories where you can legitimately have characters do something just because a cat suddenly started talking and told them so, or where "the magic", can just decide to change the hole direction of the story because that's what magic does. However, even in the best written fairy tales (such as Niel Gaiman's Stardust), there is at least a little internal consistency and coherence, and an idea that the world has rules, even if we don't entirely understand them.

This lack of momentum also meant that when beagle's individual situations didn't capture my attention, there wasn't really much of a central narrative to ride on. One passage for example, when Schmendrick was captured by a band of outlaws and their swaggering leader, a passage which first hammered the captain's archetypal egotism a little too hard, and then referenced Robin Hood as historical character, mythic figure, legend and even summoned spirit in the same scene simply fell flat. In general, the book's occasionally rather anachronistic and self-referential references to real world historical ideas and literary tropes reminded me unpleasantly of some of the more hard going aspects of T H White's Once and Future King, with its constant historical and political prevarication, which was not really something I cared about much when set against the monsters and magic.

That being said, there were still plenty of moments Beagle's superlative style simply carried me along, the unicorn's confrontation with the book's major antagonist, albeit a confrontation which seemingly comes out of nowhere, is one of the most sheerly terrible things I've read for quite some time, and a chapter I won't soon forget.

Unfortunately, the book's second half almost overstays its welcome, partly due to the unicorn herself. For half of the plot, the unicorn remains more of a catalyst than a character, and though she is the one on a journey to seek her people, she tends not to act herself, but promote action in those around her, whether Schmendrick's desire to help her out of a bad situation, Molly's longing for her regard, or just the many simple villagers who try to capture what they perceive to be an ordinary; if extremely beautiful, horse.

This makes sense given what Beagle says about unicorns, and that their nature is presumably quite elemental.

However, halfway through the book, the unicorn is turned into a human by a magical accident, giving Beagle the perfect chance to have her grow, and experience life and change. The problem however, is she doesn't, she remains simply more of a figure than a character. Admittedly Beagle, with his usual descriptive flair, tells us in detail of her confusion and disorientation at her new human form, especially when a prince starts paying court to her. However, the unicorn herself does not really alter her outlook or experience much of human feelings along the way. She goes from being an aloof, immortal, amazingly beautiful magical creature, to being an aloof, mortal, amazingly beautiful princess.

I'd have loved to see the unicorn learning far more about being human, having friends, growing, changing, perhaps even helping Molly in the kitchen or even (Grim forbid), being a mite less than astoundingly beautiful! Unfortunately this is not what happens, she simply remains, passive and cold and distant upon a pedestal while others (especially the poor prince), run around on her behalf.

This is particularly problematic for the book's conclusion, which centres around the unicorn's ability to experience love. However, "love", in this case seems extremely one sided and stylised to the point of tropes, with a prince desperately trying to win the unicorn's affection or even get a kind word out of her, and her being unresponsive as a porcelain doll, no matter how many acts of rather overblown knight errantry he commits on her behalf. With the prince introduced at such a comparatively late point in the novel, and all the damsels he saves and dragons he slays given a rather ironic and almost cynical description, I thought the point was perhaps going to be that both he, and the unicorn, had to actually experience real, down to earth, none stylised human love, (especially with Molly's exasperation at the pair of them), however this never appeared, and in the end Beagle seemed to indicate that this impersonal process of a beautiful woman remaining silent and unapproachable whilst a man throws himself into ever more baffled efforts to become worthy of her really was the essence of "love." From any other writer I'd accept this as a genuine miscalculation, especially for a book written in the sixties when stories of knight errantry and courtly love were far more in the public consciousness than they were today, but for Beagle, who otherwise shows himself to be so nuanced, and who even acknowledges the intrinsic coldness of fairy tale tropes, this seems an extreme oversight.

All that being said, the writing is just so plain good, that much of the time, I found myself just skating past character inequity, especially when it came to fantastic landscapes or gorgeous monsters, and even if from a character perspective I didn't find the courtly affair of the prince and unicorn to be particularly convincing, at the same time, Beagle's evocation of this in the final confrontation still worked as a static word picture, if not quite a moment of character, something which was true of the unicorn's final destination as well. Fortunately, Beagle did indicate slightly more for Molly and Schmendric, letting their journey continue, even as their current adventure came to an end, and subtly hinted at where their characters (both sadly far more developed than the prince or the unicorn), could end up in the future.

The Last Unicorn is an odd novel. It contains many nuanced characters, even down to its villains, yet a rather cold protagonist whose journey isn't really what we think it should be. It contains a plot which jigs and jags and occasionally lapses almost into parody, yet encompasses some wonderful ideas executed with absolute skill. Above all, it contains some of the most honestly lovely writing I have seen. Is it a truly timeless classic? With its anachronisms, odd asides and slightly jerky plot, perhaps not. A classic however most certainly, and one which every lover of fantasy should definitely experience.

8/10 Where now the horse and the splendour, and the horn that was glowing?

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Review by Dark

4 positive reader review(s) for The Last Unicorn

Peter S Beagle biography

Lyle from United States

This book is the greatest Fantasy novel of all time, in my view. Its lyrical writing, its memorable and very human characters, and its exploration of mortality, immortality, and the meeting of the two never fail to move me. Looking across the various Beagle books that I've read so far, each one has to do in some very deep and profound way with love, and loss, and the value of love... which in the case of the unicorn becomes important enough to surrender immortality to possess. There are also recurring themes of loss and grief, and the contemplation of the meaning and purpose of life (and death). Beagle's beautiful, carefully wrought prose tends to grab me even at the individual sentence level, and his paragraphs manage to say, or imply, much more than most writers' do. I'm left humbled, and deeply thankful that such a thoughtful heart as Beagle's would share so generously of his feelings on such universal and important themes, and thereby enrich our sense of our own lives and selves. Few such writers have ever existed.

Nadine from Austria

I fell in love with the movie first but the book is fantastic, even if you already know the story. Beagle brings a depth to his prose and characters that makes every page enjoyable. The writing is lyrical and beautiful and every word has its place. There is literally nothing I would change about this story. A full review can be read at: http://sffbookreview.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/peter-s-beagle-the-last-unicorn/

Sharon from US

One of my favorites as a young teen. Really pulls your heart.

Heather from New Zealand

My favourite fantasy. It is one of those stories that will not leave your head, and when you read it you don't quite know whether to laugh or cry. It's poignant and hilarious by turns, the writing is lyrical and beautiful, and the unicorn is everything I ever half-dreamt a unicorn had to be. It is one of the few truly magical books I have ever read, and even this praise is too little. There's a novella-length sequel called "Two Hearts", which has many of the same qualities and is therefore fantastic, but nothing - *nothing* - matches the original.

9.5 /10 from 5 reviews

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Review: The Last Unicorn

The Last Unicorn , Peter S. Beagle. New York: Roc, 1968.

Summary: A quest in which the last unicorn embarks on a quest to find her lost kin, eventually join by Schmendrick the Magician, and Molly Grue, a quest involving a confrontation with the Red Bull, and a grim king.

I was never much for unicorns, but then read a recommendation of this book. Peter Beagle takes us on a classic quest that introduced me to unicorn lore, and transformed a second-rate magician and a serving woman.

The unicorn has not heard of any of its kind for a long time, an absence that makes the joys of her forest inadequate. She embarks on a quest for her kin but is captured by Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival. Traveling with the Carnival was a second rate magician, who’d failed his training and could do little more than parlor tricks and sleight of hand, though he had learned all the spells, if he could but remember them. Schmendrick recognizes that the unicorn is no illusion and helps her get free, not by spells but by a little pick-pocketing of keys, and joins her quest.

In the next phase of the journey, they are fallen upon by would-be Robin Hoods, led by Captain Cully. The unicorn escapes, eventually Schmendrick gets free, in part by summoning the real Robin Hood, the first indication he is capable of real magic. He finds Molly Grue standing before the unicorn, both enrapt, and infuriated that it had taken this long for the unicorn to show up in her life. That’s Molly–unfiltered!

The questers learn that whatever happened to the unicorns has to do with the Red Bull, who lives at the base of King Haggard’s castle and periodically roams to round up any remaining unicorns. And so it comes for the last unicorn. The unicorn neither dies nor finds the others. There is yet more story involving a transformation into a woman, a journey through Hagstown, that sad village beneath the castle, a stay in the castle, and a love affair with a prince. But the bull awaits, and only the last unicorn in her true form has any chance of liberating the other unicorns.

The unicorn represents what is really real, and for those who truly see her, they become real as well. The magician discovers what it is to yield to the true magic rather than summon it with spells. Molly departs the would-be “merry men” for a real quest. The prince becomes a hero in his quest for the heart of Amalthea, the unicorn in human form.

But for all this there is the seemingly unconquerable Red Bull and the question of whatever became of the other unicorns. If you haven’t read the story, you will need to go on your own quest! One distinction of Beagle’s writing: you won’t be wandering for a thousand pages. This one finishes in under 300.

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thank you, it sounds like a great book.

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Elitist Classic: The Last Unicorn

Patrick Rothfuss called this “the best book I’ve ever read.” His love for THE LAST UNICORN explains the tone and texture of his THE SLOW REGARD OF SILENT THINGS EBR Review , which I loved, and it was Rothfuss’s endorsement that prompted me to get in the Way Back Machine and read this classic. I’m glad I did.

This breezy gem-of-a-book is hard to describe. I find myself at a loss because anything I write will be so inferior to it and I’d like to do THE LAST UNICORN justice. There is poetry on every page. To say I identified with the characters and that they were sympathetic is like saying that a quiet cloud drifting past a shining, amber harvest moon is beautiful. (If you hated that, then skip this; you will not enjoy 1960s era whimsical fantasy.)

There are no cardboard figures, no noble savages, this being near the beginning of the anti-hero era in literature and cinema. The nuance we hope for is present throughout, so even the really-bad bad guy is fully fleshed. This classic is a primer on “How to Write Beautifully While Keeping the Plot (mostly) Moving.” Not at the pace of a modern work, especially the grimdark stuff that many seem to enjoy; and there are no bloody battle scenes, there is no graphic sex, rape, or murder, but it somehow manages to be wonderful.

There is no way to explain the “it” factor. I have tried to describe it as other-worldly, touching both writer and reader at the soul level, and a thing of inspiration, though many claim there is more of perspiration to this process. Like a really good wine, we know it when we taste it, and this is a very good wine, if a bit sweet. More complex as it is savored and it finishes well! (To completely wring out a metaphor.)

THE LAST UNICORN is a breezy gem that holds up to modern sensibilities. Beautiful writring and a story well told is what you'll find here.

Here I break tradition and skip the synopsis for two reasons. One, a description of the plot may have discouraged me from reading this once because it sounded dumb to me, a mid-1970s teen at the time. Two, there are so many delightful surprises that any re-telling of the story might ruin some of them. It couldn’t be that I dislike writing synopses and don’t often read them. Nope. In this case, I stand by my excuses, er, reasons. It’s about a unicorn and her friends and they go on a quest and have adventures and misadventures and there is peril and beauty. And sadness. There.

So, read this book because it is on every “best” list for mid-century fantasy, it is important and historic, but mostly because it’s good. Gardener-style writing is not always this good, and its flaws are a result of too much meandering, but Beagle always gets back on track in interesting and surprising ways. I do so love being surprised, but the biggest surprise was how well this book holds up to modern sensibilities. Not all SF/F offerings from this era do, even those well-regarded in their time.

• Recommended Age: All ages
• Language: Nope
• Violence: Some frightening scenes; mild violence, easily skipped to read-aloud for very young ears
• The Last Unicorn — Amazon

Author Links:

• Peter S. Beagle — Website — EBR Reviews

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Book Review: The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

The first book I finished reading in 2024 was The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. Surprisingly, this was my first time reading this classic of fantasy fiction. I also have no memory of ever seeing the animated movie. This strikes me as weird because I loved unicorns as a kid and grew up on movies like The Princess Bride, Willow, and Dragonslayer, alongside all the Disney animated classics. I don’t know if my parents specifically had something against the book and movie, or if it was just that by the time I was old enough to watch the movie (having been born the same year it was released), it was too old to be new and exciting, and not old enough to be a classic. Or maybe our small-town video store just didn’t have a copy.

Gosh, remember video stores? Remember wandering the shelves trying to find something you hadn’t seen before that was relevant to your interests? Remember “Be Kind, Rewind”?

What I’m saying is that I’m old. The Last Unicorn is older. The book was published all the way back in 1968. I definitely had some trepidation at the idea of reading it for the first time in the 2020s. I think we’ve all had the experience of re-reading something we enjoyed as a child, or finally picking up a much-recommended classic, only to be hit in the face by some disgusting racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or ableism. So I asked friends who had re-read it recently, and they assured me it held up.

Surprisingly, it does. Look, I wouldn’t say The Last Unicorn is progressive, but it’s not regressive either. There’s a couple weird cringe interactions between heterosexual couples that hew to some typical gender stereotypes, but that’s as offensive as it gets.

The Last Unicorn didn’t become a new favorite. I’m not sitting here regretting that I waited so long to read it. But I enjoyed the experience, and smiled when I caught a couple of references that I’d seen people make before and didn’t realize came from this book.

One interesting thing that I noticed is that the world building is pretty… squishy. A common complaint I see against some “lighter” genres of fantasy, such as romantasy, young adult, and cozy fantasies, is that the world building is slap-dash and uneven. But The Last Unicorn shows that there’s clear precedence. Not every author has to go all JRR Tolkien. You can get away with setting your story in the vague medieval or Renaissance past, with references to Robin Hood, but no clear geographical markers, and throw some magic in, and make a few anachronistic comments, and still become a beloved genre classic.

Note: This edition has an introduction by Patrick Rothfuss. I normally read introductions but I am decidedly not a fan of Rothfuss so I skipped right past it. Sorry not sorry.

CWs/TWs : No major content warnings here. There’s some mild violence and peril, some light misogyny, and some character descriptions that could be fatphobic, but nothing really in-your-face.

Format and source : I read this as an ebook, borrowed from the Seattle Public Library.

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I had a library hold on The Last Unicorn for weeks before I picked up any Book Bingo cards, so I was happy to find that it fit into squares for both Nook & Cranny and Brick & Mortar’s challenges.

Nook & Cranny (Card 2): A Little Thing Called Magic. Look, what could be more magical than a unicorn? I rest my case. But beyond that, the wizard Schmendrick also has his whole story arc with his magic. It’s a very magical book is what I’m saying.

Brick & Mortar: A Classic (New to You!). The Last Unicorn is considered a classic of fantasy fiction, and as mentioned before, I somehow never read it before!

Current Bingo Challenge Progress

Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 0 out of 25 prompts complete. 0 bingos.

Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 1 out of 25 prompts complete. 0 bingos.

Brick & Mortar: 1 out of 25 prompts complete. 0 bingos.

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THE LAST UNICORN by Peter S. Beagle (BOOK REVIEW)

“We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream. Still I have read, or heard it sung, that unicorns when time was young, could tell the difference ‘twixt the two—the false shining and the true, the lips’ laugh and the heart’s rue.”

The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle is a book I have been wanting to read for many years. As a child, I adored the animated film also titled The Last Unicorn and as soon as I discovered it was based on a book I needed to get my hands on it. The only problem was that it wasn’t available in the UK and so I patiently waited. To my delight, this year (2022) Gollancz reissued the book with a stunning deluxe edition and brand new cover art. When they offered to send me a copy in exchange for an honest review, well as you can imagine I jumped at the chance!

The Last Unicorn is a tale of courage, identity, friendship, love and loss. At its heart this is a timeless children’s classic but with Beagle’s added depth and subtext it is also perfect for adults to equally enjoy.

The book begins almost identically to the animated film, which isn’t really all that surprising considering Beagle wrote the screenplay. It was apparent that Beagle had directly taken scenes and even quotes from his book and injected them into the adaptation, and I thoroughly enjoyed spotting those. Yet this doesn’t continue throughout and it wasn’t long until I discovered just how much the book differed. Most notably, Beagle’s prose is lyrical with much melancholy, this had the effect of creating a bleak atmosphere as sorrow seeped from many of the characters. I realised this isn’t quite the charming and whimsical story about a unicorn on her first adventure that it initially appears to be, underneath Beagle packs in a great amount of emotion. In each of the lands the Unicorn travels through poverty and hardship can be found. Her grace and beauty only works to offset the misery of the people struggling to survive and of those who simply wish to be worthy of remembrance. A darkness has taken hold and it leads the Unicorn to finding a selfish King with a curse upon him.

Though Schmendrick the Magician and Molly Grue, the unicorn’s closest companions, bring more light hearted scenes and warmth to the narrative, their backstories are also filled with sadness. This is where the book, in my opinion, surpasses the film as we get a clearer understanding of each of the characters, their fears and their motivations. Beagle fantastically represents themes of identity and loneliness here, the Unicorn is often mistaken for a mare and this cuts her deeply, how must it feel to not even be acknowledged for who you truly are and to realise you no longer belong, you are utterly alone? Schmendrick and Molly also both struggle with belonging, and are often perceived as less than they truly are, which leads to them being dismissed by others. Even Mommy Fortuna, Rukh and King Haggard, who we identify as the villains of this tale, are ultimately alone in this decaying world.

“They had a moment to look at each other, the two women: the one fair and foreign in the cold, low room; the other appearing quite at home in such surroundings—an angry little beetle with her own kitchen beauty.”

Yet it is perhaps Prince Lír, our besotted valiant hero, who has the purest heart, something we don’t really come to understand until the end. Together these characters form strong friendships with each other, a strange found family who help each other grow. In fact, all the characters transform in one way or another by the end and though I won’t spoil how, I will say that our tale ends on a beautiful mixture of sorrow and hope.

“I never looked at you without seeing the sweetness of the way the world goes together, or without sorrow for its spoiling. I became a hero to serve you, and all that is like you.”

The Last Unicorn is packed with adventure and peril, grace and tragedy, with depth and heart. I can clearly see why it remains a classic.

ARC provided by Jenna at Gollancz in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the copy! The Last Unicorn is out now! 

Nils Shukla

Nils is an avid reader of high fantasy & grimdark. She looks for monsters, magic and bloody good battle scenes. If heads are rolling, and guts are spilling, she’s pretty happy! Her obsession with the genre sparked when she first entered the realms of Middle Earth, and her heart never left there! Her favourite authors include; Tolkien, Jen Williams, John Gwynne, Joe Abercrombie, Alix E Harrow, and Fonda Lee. If Nils isn’t reading books then she’s creating stylised Bookstagram photos of them instead! You can find her on Twitter: @nilsreviewsit and Instagram: @nils.reviewsit

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The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

U pon learning that she may be the last of her kind in all the world, Peter S. Beagle’s titular and nameless unicorn sets out from her enchanted lilac wood to discover what the monstrous Red Bull has done to her immortal kin. With the help of Schmendrick, an inept magician, and Molly Grue, a rugged yet kindhearted Maid Marian figure, the unicorn journeys to the kingdom of the callous King Haggard, who bade the Red Bull imprison the unicorns in the sea outside his castle. The book’s charm lies in the ways it defies fantasy convention. In this cult classic, written in lyrical prose and rife with both whimsical humor and philosophical ruminations on what it means to be human, Beagle spins a quasi-medieval fairy tale that remains timeless. — Megan McCluskey

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Peter Beagle, Author of ‘The Last Unicorn,’ Is Back In Control

After losing control of his intellectual property — including the book, a classic and a strong seller for decades — he has regained the rights, and is publishing again.

Peter Beagle, author of “The Last Unicorn,” has just recovered the rights to his work. Credit... Talia Herman for The New York Times

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By Elizabeth A. Harris

• Aug. 11, 2022

Peter Beagle started writing “The Last Unicorn” in a cabin in Cheshire, Mass. when he was 22 years old. Published in 1968, the book remains a strong seller, a classic in the fantasy genre.

The author’s journey has not been as smooth.

After a lifetime writing whimsical stories and struggling to cover his bills, Beagle lost control of his intellectual property to his manager, Connor Freff Cochran, who also controlled his finances, and later claimed to friends and family that Beagle had dementia.

Now, after a lengthy court battle in which he accused Cochran of financial elder abuse, Beagle has the rights to his work back, and is making the most of it: A new edition of “The Last Unicorn” came out in July, a sequel called “The Way Home” is scheduled for publication next year, and he has another novel out on submission to his publisher.

“A line I wrote in ‘The Last Unicorn’ when I was in my early twenties,” Beagle said, turned out to be as prescient, for better and worse, as anything he’s written since. “‘Mortals, as you may have noticed, take what they can get.’”

Beagle, 83, has a mischievous sense of humor, and when he speaks, it sounds like he’s reading a play on a 1940s radio program, his full, rumbling voice spooling his stories and delivering the punchline just so.

“I know I'm a good story teller,” he said, “which makes my life sound more interesting than it actually is.”

His agent, Howard Morhaim, said the first time they met years ago, Beagle crashed a black-tie dinner Morhaim was hosting for his clients — Beagle was not yet one of them — wearing a black leather jacket.

“He took up residence at the far end of the table and held that entire end of the table spellbound for two and a half hours,” Morhaim said. “I was deeply jealous.”

When Beagle writes, the approach is similar, he said. He just tells the story.

This is how Beagle has made his living, writing books, magazine articles, screenplays — including animated versions of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Last Unicorn” and an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” — along with dozens of short stories. He briefly taught a college course in Seattle and spent a dozen years singing in a French restaurant in Santa Cruz on weekends.

“My only other job was borrowing from people,” he said. “What mattered was survival.”

Beagle has been married three times, but he has had the same best friend since he was five years old, a painter named Phil Sigunick. One of his first books, “I See By My Outfit,” was about a cross country motor scooter trip the two friends took in the 1960s. Beagle recalled that over the years, Sigunick liked to say, the things “you’ll do for a buck and a half always amazes me.” (But with a salty curse word thrown in.)

When Beagle met Cochran in 2001, he was in the middle of a divorce and mired in debt. The two men began working together, and eventually, Cochran started managing Beagle’s finances, paying Beagle’s bills and rationing money to him as “though it were a parent administering an allowance for a child,” court documents say.

Cochran, who is also a writer, created a company called Avicenna Development Corporation to house both his intellectual property and Beagle’s. The two men would split ownership 50-50, but, according to court documents, it was structured in such a way that Cochran controlled the business. Beagle said in court that he never even knew about some of the money that was earned on the basis of his creations, including a $100,000 payment over a rights dispute involving “The Last Unicorn.”

“I trusted Connor,” Beagle said. “Which was a mistake.”

In 2015, Beagle sued Cochran in California Superior — a difficult trial during which two of Beagle’s children testified against him, he said. At the end of his daughter’s testimony, Beagle said, he looked down and realized that his lawyer, Kathleen Hunt, had been holding his hand.

Cochran was found liable for financial elder abuse, fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. He was also found liable of defamation for telling Beagle’s friends, family members and business associates that the writer had dementia.

“The evidence reflects that Cochran allowed his role as the trusted adviser to get the better of him,” the decision said. “He crossed the line from business manager to over-paternalistic friend, exercising a surprising degree of control over Beagle’s finances and, in effect, Beagle’s life.”

Cochran’s own testimony, the decision said, revealed that he was convinced that “only he could rescue Beagle and transform Beagle’s works into an intellectual property mega-estate. And, Cochran convinced himself, he should benefit accordingly.”

Cochran said in an interview that he believed he was operating in Beagle’s best interest. He argued that Beagle had terrible financial instincts and that more money flowed in when he managed the author’s work.

“I set out to help him,” Cochran said. “I loved the man. I loved the man’s writing.”

He denied the story that was told about him in the lawsuit and said he plans to continue fighting the claims against him in court.

“I hope that people who actually look at the documents, the documentary history, will see that it’s just it’s just not true,” he said.

Right before the trial was set to begin, Cochran put himself and their company, Avicenna, into bankruptcy, which shielded it from litigation. Last year, Beagle bought his intellectual property out of bankruptcy for $600,000, a pot of money that was contributed and raised by longtime business partners and friends.

And with that, after many years, Beagle had regained control of his own legacy, including his most famous novel, “The Last Unicorn.”

The book follows a unicorn who believes she is the last of her kind, and goes on a journey to find out what happened to the rest of them. It was made into an animated movie in 1982, with Mia Farrow as the voice of the unicorn. It has become, along with the book, a cult classic.

Ben Lee, an associate publisher for paperbacks and backlist at Berkley, said the book consistently sells 15,000 to 20,000 a year — sales that would be a strong showing for a new book, one that debuted with a marketing budget behind it. In 50 years, “The Last Unicorn” has never been out of print.

“Young people have discovered it and find, for one reason or another, that they’re not alone, that the unicorn searching for her own people gives them courage,” he said. “I’ve always been alone, it’s just that I have a few weird friends. And if you have a few weird friends, you can manage.”

Beagle said he is now finally able to relax, without worrying how he’ll pay for this bill or that one. And he’s still writing.

“As long as I’m working, I’m OK,” he said. He said he expects his last words to be, “I wasn’t finished!” (With another salty curse word thrown in.) “I can live with that.”

Alain Delaqueriere contributed research.

Elizabeth A. Harris writes about books and publishing for The Times.  More about Elizabeth A. Harris

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The Last Unicorn – book review

On the surface, it’s not a complicated tale. A unicorn, with two companions, completes a Joseph Campbell-esque heroic journey in fairly straightforward fashion. The beauty, depth, and magic of the tale live in its details.

I’m fumbling for a way to describe those details adequately in what is supposed to be a short review. While the book is centered around the unicorn’s journey, each of the main characters (and several of the secondary characters) have journeys of their own that they complete over the course of the book. The language of the book is lyrical, yet very concise, with some remarkably wise gems hidden where you don’t expect them.

Capturing emotions in writing is difficult, like trying to showcase all the details of a butterfly without harming it. The Last Unicorn captures each emotion of each scene (from the very simple to the very complex) with the same concise beauty that characterizes the text.

One could argue some scenes are superfluous. Some of the scenes with Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival meandered more than they needed to. We could all have lived without the scene with the overly affectionate tree, and the scenes in Hagsgate could have been condensed without harming the story at all. But even those scenes captured beautifully the emotions suited to them.

As a child, I wasn’t sure what to think of the ending. It certainly isn’t a happy-ever-after ending. As an adult, the ending might be my favorite part. While it’s not happy-ever-after, it is beautifully balanced. The unicorn achieves all the goals with which she set out, but the story doesn’t shy away from the price of achieving those goals. The ending is a bit happy, a bit sad, and thoroughly satisfying.

The Last Unicorn remains a favorite, and I recommend it highly. You should see the film , too.

Release Date: 1968 (USA) ISBN: 0760783748 (9780760783740) Publisher: Viking Press Language: English

MySF Rating : Four point five stars Family Friendliness : 100%

Alcohol/Drugs: 1 (occasional social drinking) Language: 1 (rare mild swears and use of deity) Sexuality: 1 (very mild innuendo) Violence: 2 (combat, death)

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2 thoughts on “The Last Unicorn – book review”

do you know the name of the artist who did this cover?

I believe that cover is by Darrell Sweet…yes. See ISFDB .

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Book Review: “The Last Unicorn” by Peter S. Beagle

The last unicorn by peter s. beagle.

It would be a shame if adults reading this review noted the “12+” age recommendation and decided this book wasn’t for them. This is a book adults may appreciate on a level only an exceptional 12-year-old can grasp. In fact, it is a book to be loved, revisited, shared, and savored in the mouth like a favorite poem read aloud, even if you read without moving your lips. As one who appreciates the writer’s craft, I am moved by excellence when I see it. And since the story itself is very moving, I floated through this book on a sea-swell of emotion. The last time a single story made me cry so much in proportion to its length, it was Tolkien’s  Smith of Wootton Major . I don’t mind acknowledging a kinship between them. Both are tales about a farewell to a kind of magic in the world, and both are told with elegance and eloquence.

The Last Unicorn  is now a classic tale. I wish I could have witnessed the impact it made when it first came out in 1968. It is the tale of a beautiful, immortal creature – less like a horse with a horn on its head than you would think – who, one day, realizes that she may be the last of her kind. Regretfully, she leaves her sheltered wood and goes out into the world to seek her kind, or word of their fate. She finds a world where men have forgotten to believe in her, where most cannot see her for what she is, and where some who do recognize her mean her ill.

The unicorn’s quest takes her through captivity in an evil witch’s freak show, companionship with a hopeless wizard named Schmendrick, collision with a band of merry men who aren’t really so merry, and connection with a past-her-prime Maid Marian type (named Molly Grue) whose first words to the unicorn are a heart-wringing reproach: “Where have you been?” But the main part of the quest involves a wicked king, a cursed castle, a lovesick prince, and a terrifying creature called the Red Bull.

If you look close, you can learn a lot from what Beagle does. He never says the expected thing in the expected way. He chooses descriptive words that appeal to different senses than what we would automatically focus on, resulting in such phrases as “furry black wine” and “the little cat’s random fur.” Occasionally, he even seems to disregard the proper meaning of a word, as if choosing it for its musical effect. His every phrase, sentence, and paragraph seems to be crafted with a poet’s sensibility, with alliteration, assonance, and all the other devices that make a story seem just as close to being sung as spoken. To be sure, there are occasional moments where an ear for literal sense rebels against this impressionistic language; for example, after seeing him use the word “betimes” in two very different books, I doubt that Beagle thinks it means what I think it means. On the other hand, did I mention that the book’s beauty made me weep?

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Last Unicorn: The Deluxe Edition Hardcover – May 29, 2012

• Whimsical. Lyrical. Poignant. Adapted for the first time from the acclaimed and beloved novel by Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn is a tale for any age about the wonders of magic, the power of love, and the tragedy of loss. The unicorn, alone in her enchanted wood, discovers that she may be the last of her kind. Reluctant at first, she sets out on a journey to find her fellow unicorns, even if it means facing the terrifying anger of the Red Bull and malignant evil of the king who wields his power.
• Adapted by Peter B. Gillis and lushly illustrated by Renae De Liz and Ray Dillon, this special, oversized edition features additional art galleries and loads of extras, expanding the universe of The Last Unicorn .
• Part of Series The Last Unicorn
• Print length 200 pages
• Language English
• Publisher IDW Publishing
• Publication date May 29, 2012
• Reading age 13 - 16 years
• Dimensions 8.7 x 0.7 x 13.1 inches
• ISBN-10 1613771355
• ISBN-13 978-1613771358
• See all details

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About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ IDW Publishing; Deluxe edition (May 29, 2012)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 200 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1613771355
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1613771358
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 13 - 16 years
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.79 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.7 x 0.7 x 13.1 inches
• #14,417 in Fantasy Graphic Novels (Books)

About the author

Peter s. beagle.

Peter S. Beagle was born in 1939 and raised in the Bronx, where he grew up surrounded by the arts and education: both his parents were teachers, three of his uncles were world-renowned gallery painters, and his immigrant grandfather was a respected writer, in Hebrew, of Jewish fiction and folktales. Today, noted author and screenwriter Peter Beagle is a recipient of the prestigious Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Mythopoeic, and World Fantasy Awards, and he is a Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America 2018 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master, among many other literary achievements. He has given generations of readers the magic of unicorns, haunted cemeteries, lascivious trees and disgruntled gods. A prolific author, his best-known work is The Last Unicorn, a fantasy novel, which Locus Magazine subscribers voted the number five "All-Time Best Fantasy Novel" in 1987. Fellow Hugo and Nebula-award-winning author Neil Gaiman has described Beagle’s A Fine and Private Place as his “I-wish-I'd-written-that-first" novel. In addition to writing novels, short stories, poems, and songs, Peter S. Beagle is also known for his work on screen, including the screenplay he co-wrote for the 1978 Ralph Bakshi-animated version of The Lord of the Rings. He also wrote the teleplay for "Sarek", one of the most critically-acclaimed and popular episodes of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

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