IIRC, the original Princess had incandescent lighting for the dial.
The phone would work fine (without lighting up) on an ordinary phone
line, but did require the wall wart for the dial to light. There
was apparently a low-level "night-light" glow when the phone was
on-hook... and this *had* to come from a wart rather than from the
exchange, as phones aren't permitted to draw more than a tiny amount
of current from the line when on-hook.
I believe I recall that the wall wart was designed with a mounting
ring, through which you could fasten the wall-outlet-plate screw, so
that the wart was secured into the outlete and could not come
loose.... >search<...
Yup:
http://www.ericofon.com/catalog/parts/princess/led.htm has a
photo of the Western Electric 2012 transformer used with this phone,
as well as mention of a direct drop-in LED replacement for the
original incandescent wedge-base bulb.
I believe that the dials and button panels on the Trimline phones
(sometimes confused with the Princess line) had lights which were
exchange-powered and only worked when the phone was off-hook. It's
possible that some Princess phones worked that way but I can't confirm
it.