Mirror, Mirror

Mirror, Mirror is an American novel published in 2003. It was written by Gregory Maguire. The novel is a revisionist version of the tale of Snow White.

Plot summary

The story takes place in Montefiore, Italy in the early 16th century, on the estate of a nobleman named Don Vicente de Nevada. He lives there with his seven year old daughter, Bianca, and a small staff, the two most interesting of which are Primavera, an earthy cook and Fra Ludovico. In the beginning of the novel, de Nevada finds a mirror in a pond near his manor. This mirror was fashioned by dwarves but lost when they left it in the pond to temper. Incidentally, one dwarf spends most of the novel following de Nevada to ask the return of the mirror.

Life is good for the family until the day Lucrezia Borgia and her brother, Cesare, decadent children of a pope, come to visit. Cesare sends Vincente on a quest for a holy relic. While he is gone, Bianca becomes a young woman and Lucrezia becomes jealous of the girl's beauty and stealing Cesare's attention from Lucrezia. Eventually she hires a woodsman to kill Bianca. The girl escapes, and runs into seven dwarfs, who are looking for the eighth dwarf and their mirror.

External links

• Gregory Maguire's website