The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince
novella 2013 Realm of the Elderlings
Record
| First published | 2013 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novella |
| Canon status | |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781596065444 |
| First-edition date | 2013-02-28 |
| First-edition publisher | Subterranean Press |
| First-edition country | US |
Synopsis
The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince is a Robin Hobb novella set generations before the Farseer novels, in an era when the Wit, a beast-magic later feared and persecuted throughout the Six Duchies, was not yet hated. Narrated by Felicity, closest companion to Princess Caution, and drawing on the writings of a minstrel named Redbird, the story is presented in two parts, first following the willful, headstrong princess herself and then the figure who becomes known in later Six Duchies folklore as the Piebald Prince. It builds out the legendary backstory behind a myth that recurring characters reference throughout Hobb's main series, showing how a real royal scandal calcified over time into cautionary legend, and how the Wit's later reputation took root in events far removed from the Farseer-era plots readers already know.
Where it sits
- Universe: Realm of the Elderlings
- Series: not part of a registered series (standalone work within its universe)
- Author: Robin Hobb
Notes
- First edition: Subterranean Press hardcover, February 28, 2013 (UK Harper Voyager October 2013). The '2012' on Subterranean's own page is metadata error, resolved 2026-08-05 via Open Library/rating-platform editions.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within Realm of the Elderlings (standalone work): position 20 of 24: previous Blood of Dragons (2013) · next Fool's Assassin (2014)
Sources
← Realm of the Elderlings dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.