Peter Soyer Beagle (born April 20, 1939) is an American fantasy writer chiefly known for his book The Last Unicorn and screenplay of Ralph Bakshi's ill-fated The Lord of the Rings.
Other works include A Fine and Private Place, a fantasy romance set in a graveyard, and the short story "Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros". Also, the non-fantasy but excellent I See By My Outfit, a pseudo-autobiographical road novel.
Is a self-admitted huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Novels by Peter S. Beagle with their own trope pages include:
Films with screenplays by Peter S. Beagle with their own trope pages include:
Other works by Peter S. Beagle include examples of:
- Amnesiac Lover: Lukassa in The Innkeeper's Song, because of her recent death and subsequent revival, can't remember anything of her life or her lover Tikat. The wizard says she will likely never fully remember her past. However, Tikat sees that since he's changed so much in the course of his quest to find Lukassa, even if she did remember him he would be a stranger to her, so they can meet as strangers and start again from there, and they have a Maybe Ever After.
- Author Avatar: Joe Farrell, who appears in "Julie's Unicorn", "Lila the Werewolf", The Folk of the Air, and "Spook", has been described by Beagle as his "literary stand-in".
- Deal with the Devil: Arshadin in The Innkeeper's Song made a deal with...things...called only the Others for immortality—his blood up front for the inability to be killed (but also, it's strongly hinted, the inability to enjoy being alive, because he technically isn't), to be returned upon full payment. His old master calls this out as a bad bargain and says he thought Arshadin was at least smarter, if not better, than to make it. Naturally this goes poorly for Arshadin when he can't deliver.
- Dying as Yourself:
- In "Two Hearts", the prince dies as a hero, killing a griffin, after his friends rouse him out of a prolonged period of mental and physical decay.
- Played with in A Fine and Private Place. Laura starts the story already dead, and is distraught when Michael's family disinters his body and reburies it in a different cemetery. As ghosts can only haunt the area where their bodies lay, and because separation will cause them both to forget one another, Laura convinces Jonathan to secretly rebury her body with Michael's so that they will remain in love for their remaining time on Earth.
- The Fair Folk: Various figures of mythology and folklore appear as side characters defined by their Blue-and-Orange Morality, though they are seldom identified directly as the Fair Folk.
- Fate Worse than Death: Wizards in The Innkeeper's Song must take care to prepare themselves properly for death or else this happens. A wizard who dies in pain and sorrow will become an extra-powerful version of a malevolent spirit called a graga'ath, which cannot be stopped by any means and exists only to kill and destroy—and moreover, Arshadin, the wizard's erring former student, wants the graga'ath as his eternal servant to work his evil for him (and give the rest to the Others.)
- Ghost Amnesia: A repeated plot point throughout many Beagle novels is that ghosts endure only as long as they remember being alive, but gradually lose their memories and fade away.
- Lukassa in The Innkeeper's Song is brought back from the dead physically, but can't remember anything, not even her lover, Tikat.
- The short story "Spook".
- The titular ghost in Tamsin cannot remember the last night of her mortal life, something that has direct bearing on the plot. Ironically, this is the reason why Tamsin is immune to the general rule and has lasted as a ghost for over 300 years, as recovering the memory has become her Unfinished Business.
- In A Fine and Private Place, this rule becomes the novel's central tragedy. Two ghosts meet and fall in love only after their deaths, but both are doomed to slowly lose their mortal memories and disappear.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: The Folk of the Air features a former earth-mother goddess from the neolithic era now working as a therapist in Berkeley.
- God Was My Co-Pilot: In The Innkeeper's Song, the shapeshifting fox who follows the three women in the song around has a third face, the "old nothing", an ancient cosmic being from the dawn of time before humanity even existed, powerful enough to defeat the undefeatable graga'ath and even return it to life as the man it once was. It's also been pushing said character, subtly and not-so-subtly, to help fight Arshadin even though he doesn't really want to get involved.
- Interesting Situation Duel: In "Spook", Joe Farrell has to duel a ghost. Since the usual candidates wouldn't work on an insubstantial opponent, the choice of weapons is "bad poetry".
- Menstrual Menace: "Lila the Werewolf" purposely plays with the similarities between menstruation and lycanthropy."First day, cramps. Second day, this. My introduction to womanhood."
- Noodle Incident: In "Spook", the story of how Joe Farrell learned the poem "A Tragedy" by Theophilus Marziels. Before he recites it, he says, "Remind me to tell you how I learned it — there was a Kiowa Indian involved."
- Odd Friendship: In "Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros", a professor is friends with what he insists is a talking Indian Rhinoceros. It says it's a unicorn. Despite this difference of opinion and other differences, it's a quite close friendship.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The elderly wizard of The Innkeeper's Song is only ever referred to as either my friend or the Man Who Laughs, having told none of his students his real name.
- Our Mermaids Are Different: In "Salt Wine", a merman rewards a sailor who rescued him by giving him the recipe for salt wine. It makes him rich, but then it turns out that a small number of those who drink it become transformed into mer-creatures themselves. Here, mermaids are portrayed as wild and inhuman, and they range from supernaturally hideous to supernaturally beautiful.
- Shapeshifting Lover: In "The Tale of Junko and Sayuri", a hunter wounds an otter and takes it home with him to nurse it back to health. Once the otter is healed, it transforms into a woman and becomes his wife, who uses her power to help him move up in life, all the time not knowing what exactly she is. It turns out she's an ushi-oni.
- Stealth Sequel: The Innkeeper's Song includes an elderly wizard that in many ways seems to be an extremely old version of Schmendrick from The Last Unicorn. This is never explicitly confirmed or denied, and when asked in person Beagle responds with a smile: "I don't know; what do you think?"
- Switching P.O.V.: Each chapter in The Innkeeper's Song is told from a different character's perspective.
- Sword Cane: Lal carries one in The Innkeeper's Song.
- Talking Animal: According to the professor at least; the rhinoceros maintains it's a unicorn.
- Unicorn:
- The Last Unicorn, arguably Beagle's most famous work, features a unicorn protagonist.
- In "Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros", the talking rhinoceros maintains it is a unicorn. The professor, of course, says it's merely a talking rhinoceros. This is based on how, historically, many exotic animals from Africa were likely mistaken for unicorns.
- Ushi-oni: "The Story Of Junko And Sayuri" features a female ushi-oni. She can expel fire from her mouth, has yellow-white eyes, and claws on her many-fingered hands.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe:
- In The Folk of the Air, the Olde Englishe spoken by members of a society based on the Society for Creative Anachronism is derided as "Castle Talk". One character remarks, "It's got no rules!"
- "Kings may override grammar!"
- Subverted in Tamsin, where the ghosts speak the flawless Jacobean English they spoke in life, while many of the supernatural creatures speak with a version of an older Dorset dialect.