The first (Doubleday hardcover) edition of the novel is unusually rare; the publisher pulped a significant part of the original print run in error when the order went out to destroy remaining copies of Zelazny's older book Creatures of Light and Darkness.

He is one of nine men who might rule Amber, if he can fight his way past the armies of his older brother Eric.

He meets members of this newly rediscovered family, and then later is shown and walks in the Pattern, a labyrinth inscribed in the dungeons of Castle Amber which gives the multiverse its order.

Bleys falls from the side of the Kolvir mountain and Corwin is captured, blinded and imprisoned.

His five daughters are Florimel, Deirdre, Fiona, Llewella, and Coral (who doesn't come into play until book 9) but the major players of the novel are the nine princes of the title: A three-part comic adaptation was done by Terry Bisson in 1996.