What is the correct way to write "The Prince's Book" in Latin?

Question

Greetings Latin StackExchange. One of my hobbies is to write stories and in one of my stories I would like to incorporate an item called "The Prince's Book". My ideal goal is that this item is written 100% in Latin and that that poses as a strugle to my characters.

Now, I'm a bit stuck in my research here. I would like to describe some parts of the interior of the book and one of them is the first printed page which would have this sentence on it.

I started out with Google Translate just to get a general feel for which words I could or could not use (and how horrible the syntax would look, eek) and went onto the "Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short" online dictionary to see what I could make of it.

So far what I have is either:

1. Princeps Ex Libro;
2. Liber Princeps.

But I have a really strong feeling that neither are correct! From the very, very, very little tiny knowledge of Latin that I have, is Libre not related to freedom?

I am also getting a very ill feeling about the word Princeps. I've found way too many meanings for it that differ from each other a lot.

I would be really, really grateful if someone could help me properly word the title of the item as to not make it just some cheap prop done with 5 minutes of research and zero respect for the actual language.

Thank you very, very much in advance for any help that you can provide.

Kind regards,

A Very Amateur Writer

Answer 1

The word “liber” does mean “book”. Think of “library”. It’s also true that “liber” means “free”. They’re just homographs (but in Classical Latin, not homophones: the i in the “free” word is pronounced longer than the i in the “book” word).

“Princeps” does have various meanings, but one of those is “prince” (as in "a ruler" e.g. Machiavelli's The Prince), so I don’t think it’s a bad choice. However, I am still at a low level in my studies of Latin so I can’t give any in-depth advice about word choice here—for that, you’ll have to wait for one of the more knowledgeable site members to make a post.

To indicate “of”, you should probably use the genitive-case form of the noun: “principis” (although as tox123 points out in a comment, the best translation would depend on what you mean exactly).

Together, it would be “Liber Principis” (or “Principis Liber”). I have the impression that in Latin, genitives of this type typically follow the modified noun (at least, in titles like this), so I would prefer “Liber Principis”, but either word order is grammatical.

Neither “Princeps Ex Libro” nor “Liber Princeps” is a grammatical way of expressing “The Prince’s Book”/“The Book of the Prince”.

Answer 2

Liber principis is certainly a good choice. The genitive "prince's" is best expressed with the Latin genitive, whether the prince owns the book or wrote it. It is typical to put the genitive after the main word in Latin.

Liber is the typical translation for "book". Another option is volumen, but it usually refers to a book which is rolled open.

Princeps is a good word for a prince, but not the only option. There is also regulus (literally "little king"). You can also use the word delphinus for the crown prince, but I'm not aware of this having been used outside France. The phrase ad usum delphini may or may not be familiar. If you pick this word, be aware that it also means a dolphin.

Google Translate is very unreliable. Translated to English, princeps ex libro means "the prince from the book" and liber princeps "the principal book" or "the free prince". Neither is close to what you want; the choice of words is fine, but the choice of structures is not.

Here are the options that came to my mind, collected together:

prince's book
liber/volumen principis/reguli/delphini

Answer 3

If you are using "prince" in its usual English meaning ("son of a king"), then princeps is definitely the wrong word. The word that Livy uses for the son of a (foreign) king is regulus. So a "prince's book" would be Liber reguli.