General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20266 min read

Shrek!

Shrek! is a 1990 children's picture book written and illustrated by William Steig about a thoroughly repulsive ogre who leaves his parents' home, terrifies everyone he meets, and, following a witch's prophecy, sets out to marry a princess even uglier than himself¹. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux under the Michael di Capua Books imprint, it became the basis of DreamWorks Animation's 2001 Academy Award-winning film Shrek and its franchise²^•³.

Key fact	Detail
Author	William Steig (1907–2003), Caldecott and Newbery Medal winner, longtime New Yorker cartoonist⁴^•⁵
First published	October 17, 1990, Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Michael di Capua Books, New York¹
Length and audience	30 unnumbered pages in the first edition; recommended for ages 4–8⁶^•⁴
Plot	The ogre Shrek leaves his swampy home, frightens people and animals everywhere he goes, hears a witch's prophecy, and marries a princess uglier than himself⁴^•⁷
Character contrast	Unlike the film's Shrek, the original has no kind, lonely soul hiding inside; he delights in being repulsive⁸
Film rights	Purchased by director Steven Spielberg in 1991, the first Hollywood interest in the book; DreamWorks later produced the 2001 film⁹
Film result	The 2001 film won an Academy Award and generated more than $265 million in U.S. box office receipts³
Current editions	Kept in print by Square Fish (Macmillan); translations include Swedish, Russian, Turkish, Spanish, Polish, and Italian⁴^•¹⁰

The story

Shrek is described in the book as a horrid little ogre whose parents, having raised him to be suitably horrible, "hissed things over" and "kicked him goodbye" so that he would go out into the world and frighten people as they had¹. He slogs along the road giving off awful fumes; wherever he goes, people and animals flee, and he delights in being repulsive⁷. His hideous appearance and the smoke belching from his ears, plus his "putrid blue flame," send even a "whopper of a dragon" packing⁷.

On his travels he meets a witch who prophesies that he will marry a princess even uglier than he is. Intrigued, he sets out to find her, encountering a knight in armor and a dragon on the way, and at last the two repulsive lovers meet and exchange heartfelt declarations of mutual admiration before getting hitched as soon as possible⁴^•⁷. The story is told in Steig's characteristic rhyming, playful language across roughly thirty pages¹¹.

The book plays fairy-tale expectations in reverse: the hero and heroine are the monsters, and ugliness is a source of pride and happiness rather than a curse to be lifted. A Kirkus starred review called it "an original—and comical—reexamination of the reverse world of monsterdom," and The Washington Post Book World called it "sure to enchant any child lucky enough to read it"¹^•⁴. Publishers Weekly reviewed it as "an engrossing and satisfying tale" by an author whose "epigrammatic genius is given full rein"⁷.

William Steig and the book's creation

Steig was already famous when he wrote it. Hailed as the "King of Cartoons," he produced some 2,600 drawings and 123 covers for The New Yorker over his career⁵. He began a second career in children's books in 1968 at age 61 with Roland the Minstrel Pig, and just two years later won the Caldecott Medal for Sylvester and the Magic Pebble⁵. Shrek! appeared in 1990, when he was in his eighties, and he illustrated it in color himself¹^•¹². His widow Jeanne Steig described him as a "tragicomic artist," and his expressive animal and monster characters are signatures of his picture books⁵.

The film was based on Steig's 1990 picture book of the same title, though with an exclamation point added to the book's title².

First edition and publication history

The true first is the 1990 New York edition from Farrar, Straus & Giroux / Michael di Capua Books. A first printing states "First edition, 1990" on the copyright page with no later printings listed, is bound in glossy pictorial boards with olive green endpapers, and, an important point for collectors, was issued without a dust jacket; any copy offered "in dust jacket" is misdescribed¹³. The publisher's printed price appears at the lower left corner of the back cover¹³.

The book has stayed in print. Later editions include a Viking Children's Books hardcover in 2000, a Puffin paperback in 2001 after the film appeared, a Farrar, Straus and Giroux 20th-anniversary edition in 2010, and the current Square Fish paperback¹⁰^•⁴. An audiobook read by Stanley Tucci was issued by Macmillan Young Listeners in 2009, and an earlier audio edition read by Robert Sevra was reviewed by Kirkus¹⁰^•⁸. The book's honors include listing among Publishers Weekly's and School Library Journal's best books of the year¹⁴.

From book to film

Steven Spielberg bought the film rights in 1991, the first Hollywood interest in the book⁹. DreamWorks Animation's Shrek, directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson and written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman, and Roger S. H. Schulman, opened wide on May 18, 2001, grossed $267.7 million in the United States, and holds an 89 percent Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes¹⁵.

The adaptation transformed a roughly 30-page picture book into a feature screenplay by developing the plot, adding settings and supporting characters, and modifying the protagonist to make him more sympathetic¹⁶. Donkey appeared in William Steig's original book, while Lord Farquaad and Princess Fiona's curse were inventions of the film adaptation; the film also parodies the world of Disney, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, a DreamWorks founder, had left Disney in 1994¹⁷^•⁹. Screenwriter Terry Rossio said the timing mattered: the book came along at a time when it had a context in which a comic fantasy of this kind could be made¹⁸.

Scholars have noted the tonal shift. Lewis Roberts observes that "William Steig's book is anything but a Disney-esque, formulaic story," while the DreamWorks adaptations, in his reading, offer models of identity rooted in commodity culture¹⁹. A study of fairy-tale characters in the films describes Steig's 1990 text as transformed through what Raquel Segovia terms transferencia o trasvase, a combined translation-and-adaptation process turning a printed storybook into an audiovisual product, one that went on to shape the fairy-tale canon of the twenty-first century through three sequels¹¹.

The film's success also revived the book commercially: Penguin Putnam, DreamWorks' original master publishing licensee, sold 500,000 copies of four Shrek tie-in titles within two months of the film's release³.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works › Creative written works and worlds › Genre fiction categories › Audience, identity, and theme fiction › Children's fiction › Children's picture books

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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