“I – I don’t quite know,” said I.
“Ye can sit and talk to me, then,” he said, making room for me on the stone.
“I don’t know you, Sir,” said I, taking my seat beside him
“My name is George,” he answered. “George Macdonald.” (Lewis 64-65)
In this passage from The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis depicts a kind, elderly man who invites him to sit, talk, and learn. Lewis’ depiction of this man, old, yet strong and wise, fits the person of the real George Macdonald. In his writings, Macdonald invites the reader to sit down, relax, and learn something. He incorporates real-life lessons with spiritual lessons. Unfortunately, most of his books remain lost or rarely published in the modern world. He found fame during his own life, but his legacy found its realized expression in the works of others. Macdonald’s influence extended to writers such as C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and Mark Twain. Inserting doctrine into his stories made his stories dull at times and kept his name from the fame his fellow writers received in the future, but his writings influenced some of the greatest works we have today.
A 19th century Scottish writer, Macdonald grew up with a Calvinistic background, . He was born on December 10, 1824, the son of a farmer. At only 16 years of age, he attended Aberdeen University, where he studied chemistry and physics. He hoped to go into medicine, but financial problems forced him to leave. Macdonald decided to go into the ministry and attended Highbury College in London for the Congregationalist ministry. In 1850, he became a pastor. Three years later, the leaders of the church he pastored sent him away for radical beliefs. In 1851, he married Louisa Powell. They had eleven children together, but disease killed several of them. Tuberculosis followed Macdonald’s family. He had his first attack in late 1850 and his father died of tuberculosis in the bones.
Unable to return to the ministry, Macdonald found support in writing. He started with poetry, his favorite kind of writing, and in 1855 he published Within and Without. He also wrote short stories, essays, and commentaries. This paved the way to his full-length novels. He covered several genres, but fantasy earned him most of his fame. His first book of this genre, Phantastes, came out in 1958. Queen Victoria gave him a pension of one hundred pounds per year in 1873 and he traveled the United States and a few Canadian locations on a lecture tour during the 1870’s. He spent most of his latter years in Italy, where the warm climate improved his health. Macdonald died in Ashtead, England on September 18, 1905.
Although he never wrote an autobiography, modern audiences can pick out some of Macdonald’s life experiences in several of his books. Alec Forbes of Howglen takes place in northern Scotland and contains many glimpses into Macdonald’s memories of Scotland. Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood is set near the area where Macdonald tried his hand at pasturing a church. Another of Macdonald’s novels, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood presents a happier side of Macdonald’s childhood, and Malcolm or The Fisherman’s Lady, Sir Gibbie, and Thomas Wingfold served as a trilogy in his biography-like books. Writer Michael Philips describes Macdonald’s novel, Robert Falconer, on his website about Macdonald:
The reader gains a rare glimpse into MacDonald's own boyhood, with his internal struggles, his relationship with his grandmother (who largely raised him after the death of his mother) and his spiritual search as a young man attempting to discover God's love amid the hellfire Calvinism of his upbringing. Robert Falconer's resolution of this conflict is a wonderful window into the roots and development of MacDonald's own faith which would turn generations to come toward the Fatherhood of a loving God. (“The Original Writings of George MacDonald”)
Macdonald lived in a time of new ideas. Ideas of English and German Romanticism filled his head. As his views expanded and changed, he became less Calvinist and more Universalist. Victor Shepherd wrote in Fellowship Magazine:
Although the Scots had a reputation for theological precision, MacDonald thought it to be the product of the dissecting knife: fine work done on something lifeless. For doctrine (as he had seen it handled) appeared to have been made a substitute for living faith where the believer's heart is rightly related to the heart of God. (“Heritage”)
Macdonald argued that the Christian life involved more than believing in the right doctrine. One should exhibit their faith through the “fruits of the spirit” and strive to follow Christ’s example. Furthermore, he believed in a more personal relationship with God. God loves everyone and wants to save everyone. Macdonald rejected the idea of predestination and believed that everyone would eventually come to know Christ. In his article, “George Macdonald: Theology,” Mike Partridge summarizes Macdonald’s beliefs:
God is the Father welcoming his prodigal children home not just their creator or judge. Whether we realise [sic] it or not we are all on a road leading back to him. He is our Home. MacDonald believed that people were either responding to God or turning away from him. For MacDonald there was no absolute need for a moment of conversion as traditionally understood. We are all at different stages on the journey - a journey that has its beginning and end in God.
For Macdonald, life was an exploration to find God. You create your own hell when you reject God. Hell is the knowledge that you are separated from God forever. Christ came as God’s revelation to give us a clear vision of God. Once we receive this vision we should “be so overwhelmed by his [God’s] love that all wrongdoing would be immediately set aside. Seeing right was the beginning of acting right” (“George Macdonald: Theology”). God calls us home and wishes us to obey Him with all our hearts.
Macdonald inserted his beliefs in his letters to friends and family. The Heart of George Macdonald, a collection of Macdonald’s works edited and introduced by Rolland Hein, publishes a series of letters Macdonald wrote. In his condolence letters and his letters to ill friends, he emphasized God as father and Heaven as home. In a letter to Andrew Pym, he wrote that God cares for all His creation, particularly humans. He writes:
I want you to think over and over again… that God is just the one haven you have to make for in this storm. Say to him, My Father, I belong to thee, and I am ill, and I cannot help myself; be my Father and keep near me, and do what thou wilt with me. (Hein 9)
When he encouraged friends to think of Heaven as their future home where they would see their loved ones again, he also encouraged faith in the person to whom he wrote. The person should keep faith in God’s love and faith in the reality of Heaven. To Adelaide Pym he wrote a letter that compared the earth to a nursery. God puts us in the nursery, and some of our playmates in the nursery are taken home before others. In his letter to Susan Scott, he wrote:
God knows and cares, and uses for us as a means of education for our hearts and spirits which we do not ourselves understand. It is not needful that we understand the motive power in the processes that go on within us. It is enough to him who believes it that the Lord did rise again, although after that he was hidden from their sight. Yes, I will believe that I shall hold my own in my arms again, their hearts are nearer to mine than ever before. (Hein 10)
One of Macdonald’s last works, Diary of an Old Man’s Soul, details his relationship with God through a collection of short poems, one for every day of the year. On day three of January, he wrote about longing for his Heavenly home:
Sometimes I wake, and lo, I have forgot,
And drifted out upon an ebbing sea!
My soul that was at rest now resteth not,
For I am with myself and not with thee;
Truth seems a blind moon in a glaring morn,
Where nothing is but sick-heart vanity:
Oh, thou who knowest, save thy child forlorn. (Macdonald 4, Diary of an Old Soul)
Macdonald published a series of sermons as well as a few doctrinal books, but he constantly inserted himself and his beliefs in his other writings, as well. Many of his novels focused on father-and-child relationships. Mary Marston exemplified his views on obedience to God and obedience to parents. In Marston, he specifically writes to young women, encouraging them in their dedication to Christ.
Macdonald’s talent lay with his ability to apply his stories to the lives of his readers. Phillips writes in his introduction to The Fisherman’s Lady, “It is as though he were continually weaving two parallel stories - that of a ‘plot’ and that of the partially submerged spiritual journeys being traveled in a parallel plane by those characters involved in the story” (“Why new edited editions of George MacDonald's books?”). Macdonald added sermons and long speeches into several of his novels. Unfortunately, while this attracted an audience of great thinkers and writers of his time, it kept his books from gaining a permanent popular following. Readers must bear through these elements patiently. Paying careful attention to the contents, even the slow-going contents, often turns up unique and interesting ideas. Macdonald wrote most of his works in Scottish dialect, as well, which makes them hard for the modern reader to understand.
Macdonald experimented with various genres and decided on fantasy. Realism limited the imagination too much, and he believed that fantasy conveyed double meanings better than any other genre. Jesus used parables to get across his messages, and the Bible is full of symbolism, metaphor, and analogy. He could write a story and a message into a fantasy. Fantasy fills a story with symbolism. Macdonald took advantage of this genre, using the symbolism to pass on his religious beliefs.
Even though Macdonald filled his fantasies with unrealistic elements, he made his characters seem real. His characters depicted the average-Joe of his time. These characters appealed to Macdonald’s audience. He wrote two adult fantasy novels, Phantastes: A Fairie Romance for Men and Women and Lilith, and he wrote several children’s fantasy books and stories, including The Princess and the Goblin and its sequel, The Princess and Curdie. Goblin made it to film in 1994 as a cartoon.
One of Macdonald’s better-known short stories was a fantasy. “The Light Princess” first came out with a series of other short stories. They formed stories within a story in Adela Cathcart, a collection similar to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. In it, a cluster of travelers gathers for shelter in an inn and share stories with one another. Macdonald later published “Light Princess” in a few other collections as well, including, Dealings with the Fairies, his first book of short stories, and Works of Fancy and Imagination, another collection of various stories he wrote.
The story of “Light Princess” follows a plot similar to Charles Perrault’s “The Beauty of Sleeping Wood” (Sleeping Beauty). A king and queen have a daughter, but forget to invite the king’s sister to the baby’s christening. Macdonald describes the child’s aunt:
[She was] a sour, spiteful creature. The wrinkles of contempt crossed the wrinkles of peevishness, and made her face as full of wrinkles as a pat of butter. If ever a king could be justified in forgetting anybody, this king was justified in forgetting his sister, even at a christening. She looked very odd, too. Her forehead was as large as all the rest of her face, and projected over it like a precipice. When she was angry, her little eyes flashed blue. When she hated anybody, they shone yellow and green. What they looked like when she loved anybody, I do not know; for I never heard of her loving anybody but herself, and I do not think she could have managed that if she had not somehow got used to herself. (Macdonald 6, “The Light Princess”)
The sister casts a spell on the baby princess that takes away her gravity. For the next several years, the princess cannot walk. She can only float. She regains her gravity when she swims in a nearby lake, but loses it again as soon as she leaves the water. Swimming in the lake gives her great joy, and she spends most of her time there.
A side effect of the spell causes her to never cry. She can only laugh. She cannot take things seriously and thinks everything should revolve around her. Her character is immature and selfish. Macdonald narrates, “When she was told, for the sake of experiment, that General Clanrunfort was cut to pieces with all his troops, she laughed; when she heard that the enemy was on his way to besiege her papa's capital, she laughed hugely” (Macdonald 23, “The Light Princess”).
Everything changes one day when she meets a prince looking for a bride. The prince falls in love with her at once, but she rejects his thoughts of love and laughs at him. Still, they swim together in the evenings and the princess’ joy continues to grow. Her aunt, however, cannot rejoice at the princess’ happiness. When she sees how happy the lake makes the princess, the aunt casts a spell to take away all the water of the lake. The king and queen discover that in order for the lake water to return, a man must willingly sacrifice himself for the princess. He must find the hole in the lake and place himself in it like a cork. Once he does this, the water will return and drown him.
The prince decides to volunteer because he loves the princess, but he makes the princess come out with him on a boat to feed him until the water drowns him. As the water covers him and he takes his last breath, the princess screams and jumps in to rescue him. She takes him back to the palace, hoping the doctors can restore him. For the first time, she cries out of sorrow. Her tears bring rain to fill the lake. She regains her gravity and the palace rejoices. The prince revives and marries the princess. They live happily ever after, while the aunt’s caverns under the lake collapse with her in them.
Macdonald’s “Light Princess” can symbolize more than one thing. God sacrificed Jesus for our salvation, just as the prince willingly sacrificed himself for the joy of the princess. The immature and frivolous nature of the princess before she saves the prince represents human nature. As humans, we do not take the time to stop and see the truth found in God’s word. Macdonald believed that we should respond to Christ and rediscover God in nature and in scripture. In “Light Princess,” he also stresses the importance of love in a relationship. Our relationship with God should come from the heart. Love saves the prince and princess just as God’s love saves us. The conflict of “Light Princess” also revolves around life-giving water. The lake water gives life to the princess and her kingdom and, similarly, Christ exists as our living water. Bob Trexler points out in his article, “George MacDonald and the ‘Light Princess,’” the common themes evident in Macdonald’s stories:
All MacDonald's ideas derive from and point toward two central themes: The Fatherhood of God and the obedience of the Son. But in choosing these two themes, it would be necessary to include death as the major subheading under the obedience of the son, for it is clear from MacDonald's writings that our obedience is to be modeled after that of Jesus Christ, who became obedient unto death.
In “Light Princess,” the princess' willingness to risk joining her savior-prince in death illustrates Macdonald's belief that one must die to oneself in order to live unto Christ.
A letter to a man Macdonald once met at an inn confirms the theme Trexler points to. Macdonald states that belief in an idea in the Bible and the understanding and explaining of an idea in the Bible does not confirm your faith. He writes:
It [faith] is to take him as our Lord and Master, obey his words, be prepared to die for him; it is to take on us the yoke his father laid on him and regard the will of God as the one thing worthy of a man’s care and endeavour – as indeed out very life – that, and nothing less than that, is faith in the Son of God. (Hein 6)
Later, in the same letter, Macdonald says that people too often focus on understanding instead of acting. They tell others what to do instead of doing it themselves. Macdonald’s beliefs on faith and salvation resembled the book of James in the Bible. Yes, faith saves, but works, or the fruits of the spirit, accompany true faith. Preaching doctrine does not always save and sometimes deters people from focusing on the Bible as a whole. Thinking in terms of doctrine alone limits God. Macdonald wanted the kind of faith that moves mountains, a faith that acts.
Macdonald’s spiritual themes influenced G.K. Chesterton. In his introduction to the biography written by Macdonald’s son, George Macdonald and His Wife, he cites Macdonald’s book, The Princess and the Goblin, as his favorite George Macdonald book. Chesterton says, “[It] helped me to see things in a certain way from the start; a vision of things which even so real a revolution as a change of religious allegiance has substantially only crowned and confirmed” (“George Macdonald”). Chesterton admires Macdonald’s use of real world issues in a fantasy and enjoys the ability to apply a fantasy story to his own life. In the introduction to Macdonald and His Wife, he notes how Macdonald’s descriptions make him feel as if the plot could take place inside his own home. Chesterton says:
There is something not only imaginative but intimately true about the idea of the goblins being below the house and capable of besieging it from the cellars. When the evil things besieging us do appear, they do not appear outside but inside. (“George Macdonald”)
C.S. Lewis read Macdonald’s novel, Phantastes, as a teenager. It initiated his imagination and inspired him to begin considering Christianity. An atheist at the time, Lewis slowly found himself drawn to Christ’s amazing love and redeeming power. Later in his life, Lewis published George Macdonald: An Anthology, a collection of his favorite Macdonald works along with his own comments showing his appreciation to the author. Like Chesterton, Lewis found inspiration in The Princess and the Goblin. He claimed that of those who inspired him to write The Chronicles of Narnia, Macdonald played a key role. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia and Macdonald’s Princess and the Goblin share many common themes. Most noteworthy, both stories appeal to the childlike nature of the average reader. Characters reflect the reader’s desire to become fully childlike and the reader’s inability to gain the perfect childlike attitude.
Exploring Lewis’ and Macdonald’s books in more detail reveals that they both make an effort to distinguish between the childish and the childlike. The childish character starts out selfish, but slowly transforms into the innocent, childlike character. Edmund Pevensie demonstrates this character in Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, part of the Narnia series. Edmund desires power over his brother and sisters and betrays them to the White Witch when she promises to give him power and riches. Subsequently, the witch does not keep her promise, and Aslan, the lion ruler of Narnia, sacrifices himself to save Edmund. Aslan redeems Edmund. Edmund realizes the full truth and accepts it, putting his sins behind him and moving forward.
Macdonald uses this transition in his characters to symbolize redemption. Dr. Don W. King, of the department of English at Montreat College, observes this in Macdonald’s adult fantasy novel, Lilith:
Mr. Vane in Lilith is a striking example. Throughout most of the story he is vain, short-sighted, ego-centric, conceited, stubborn, and over-confident. It is only through his relationship with Mr. Raven (Adam) and after a series of misadventures that almost lead to a catastrophe for the innocent who inhabit Lilith's world that Vane finally comes to see his short-comings; and, in the end, after he gains a childlike attitude toward life, he experiences a kind of inner healing. (“The Childlike in George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis”)
Curdie, in Macdonald’s Princess and the Goblin, gives us another example of the childish character. A worker in the mines, he finds himself forced into an adult mindset at an early age. He becomes friends with Princess Irene and later discovers the plot of the goblins to take over the kingdom. The goblins capture Curdie, but Irene saves him with the help of her mystical grandmother’s invisible thread, which leads her to Curdie’s location. Curdie refuses to believe in the invisible thread and Irene’s grandmother. He remains unconvinced until Irene’s grandmother appears to him and heals a wound the goblins inflicted on him. This reminds us of Thomas’ unbelief in the Bible. He would not believe in Jesus’ resurrection unless Jesus appeared to him.
Similar to Curdie’s unbelief, the brothers and sister of the character, Lucy, in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, refuse to believe in a magical world called Narnia that Lucy finds in a wardrobe. In Prince Caspian, another book in the Narnia series, Aslan only appears to Lucy. He tells her which way to go when she and her siblings are lost, but her brothers and sister do not believe her story and decide to go the opposite way of Aslan’s directions. Lucy goes with them and after a long, tiring journey, Aslan appears to her once more. He points out her failure to obey and shows her the right path again. In this, Lewis points out that no one can achieve perfection, but hope still exists. Although Lucy fails to obey Aslan the first time, Aslan continues to appear only to her.
Lucy and Princess Irene represent the childlike character in Lewis’ and Macdonald’s books. With a childlike heart, these characters long for something more than what they have. Dr. King points out, “the child within, our childlike self, enables us to see, even if momentarily, that there is more to life than the physical reality about us” (“The Childlike in George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis.”). Macdonald’s wording becomes playful in The Princess and the Goblin when he describes Irene’s desire for something more. She lives in a great house in the mountains, built on top of the caverns the goblins inhabit. Macdonald narrates:
She [Princess Irene] got very tired, so tired that even her toys could no longer amuse her. You would wonder at that if I had time to describe to you one half of the toys she had. But then, you wouldn't have the toys themselves, and that makes all the difference: you can't get tired of a thing before you have it. It was a picture, though, worth seeing − the princess sitting in the nursery with the sky ceiling over her head, at a great table covered with her toys. If the artist would like to draw this, I should advise him not to meddle with the toys. I am afraid of attempting to describe them, and I think he had better not try to draw them. He had better not. He can do a thousand things I can't, but I don't think he could draw those toys.
Irene’s curiosity and longing for something new leads her up three flights of stairs to several passageways filled with mysterious doors. Eventually, one particular door leads her to the spirit of her grandmother. This contains similarities to the wardrobe door through which Lucy enters the land of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Irene’s grandmother tests her childlike faith, telling her to come back in a week if she still believes that her grandmother is real. She returns and her grandmother rewards her, showing her various mystical items, including the invisible thread that leads Irene to Curdie’s prison.
Lewis and Macdonald often drew ideas from each other, as shown in the similarities between The Chronicles of Narnia and The Princess and the Goblin. The two writers link humility and innocence with a childlike attitude. In this state, a character believes what seems unbelievable. Lewis and Macdonald harken back to Jesus’ statement in Matthew 18:3: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The Heart of George Macdonald contains excerpts from some of Macdonald’s sermons. Macdonald gave more insight to his views on the childlike state in his sermon, “The Child in the Midst.” Referring to Matthew 18, Macdonald said:
[W]hen the child was employed as a manifestation, utterance, and sign of the truth that lay in his childhood, in order that the eyes as well as the ears should be channels to the heart, it was essential – not that the child should be beautiful – that the child should be childlike. (Hein 323-324)
Macdonald said Matthew 18:3 calls us to become humble and discontinue fighting over who will be the greatest in Heaven. He saw that the Calvinist preachers of his own time missed this essential requirement for entering the Kingdom of God.
Lewis describes this in chapter 9 of his book, The Great Divorce, when the character of Macdonald shows to Lewis ghosts that come to the edge of Heaven. Macdonald is the teacher at the edge of heaven. The spirits of Heaven try to convert the ghosts. The ghosts can gain joy if they accept it and put away their sins, but they come to the edge of Heaven only to spit at its gates or to tell others about Hell. Some preach about the sins of other ghosts and the statistics of Hell, ignoring their own sins. Some do not ignore their sins; rather, they think their numerous sins give them authority. One particular ghost longs for his earthly fame. The fact that everyone has equal fame in Heaven appalls him. When he discovers that people do not remember him back on earth, he rushes away to gain back his fame. We also see a reference to the ministers of Macdonald’s time when Macdonald’s character states,
There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself… as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some many who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ. (Lewis 71)
Macdonald and Lewis spend much of the chapter talking about the nature of Heaven and Hell. This chapter gives more insight to Macdonald’s own views on Hell. According to the character, Macdonald, Hell is a state of mind. Many choose Hell over the joy of Heaven because they cling to their passions and sins. They cling so hard that they become their passions and sins. Even when presented with the chance to gain joy and put away Hell, these people choose Hell. They would rather be master of their own Hell than serve God. On earth they knew the truth and rejected it, and they do the same in the afterlife. As Macdonald tells Lewis in the book, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it” (Lewis 72). It is hard to tell whether Macdonald would believe that the Hell depicted in Lewis’ Divorce should be taken literally or allegorically. Lewis seems to suggest that it is more allegorical: All people have the chance to go to heaven, but they choose Hell when they reject Christ.
It was not through his doctrine alone that Macdonald influenced his peers. Macdonald’s influence expanded with his children. One popular author of the time, Lewis Carol, became good friends with the Macdonald family and would not publish his book, Alice and Wonderland, until Macdonald’s children had read and approved it. Another writer Macdonald became friends with was Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. Macdonald’s method of storytelling attracted Clemens. Macdonald’s and Clemens’ diction and style resembled each other. Both drew from their own experiences for inspiration, and both captured the language of their homelands in the dialogues of their texts.
Clemens’ first encounter with Macdonald’s work was Robert Falconer. Reading it with his wife, Olivia, he enjoyed the first half of it, but hated the book as a whole. Thus, Clemens and Macdonald got off to a rough start, but they soon became well acquainted in America when Macdonald went on his lecture tour. Both took interest in a group of freed slaves called the Jubilee Singers. At the time, the Macdonalds lived in England. Clemens eventually visited England, and he and his wife attended one of the Macdonalds’ garden parties, which the Jubilee Singers also attended. By this time, Clemens and Macdonald had become intimate friends. In her article, “Mark Twain & George MacDonald: The Salty and the Sweet,” Kathryn Lindskoog asks, “Is it possible that the two men conceived of a story about a white orphan boy whose friend was a good-hearted black man? Within thirteen years they both happened to write and publish such a story.” Clemens came out with Tom Sawyer soon after Macdonald wrote Thomas Wingfold, Curate. Macdonald’s Sir Gibbie contained similar characters. Lindskoog pointed out in her article,
On May 10, 1880, Mark Twain bought a new book from the J. R. Barlow bookstore in his home city of Hartford, Connecticut: Sir Gibbie, by his British friend George MacDonald. It was in a paperback Seaside Library Edition, and it cost twenty cents. In July, Twain received a bill for the book. On July 5, 1880, he paid the twenty cents. And that long-forgotten twenty-cent purchase may have contributed to Huckleberry Finn. (“Mark Twain & George MacDonald: The Salty and the Sweet”)
Sir Gibbie and Huckleberry Finn share many themes and story elements. Lindskoog continues:
Both Sir Gibbie and Huckleberry Finn explore questions of ethics and truth through the life of an unusually bright and unusually unfortunate boy. Both are set in the colourful [sic] region where the author spent his boyhood. Both were written for children as well as adults. And they have at least twenty plot elements in common. (“Mark Twain & George MacDonald: The Salty and the Sweet”)
Once, Macdonald proposed that Clemens help him write a sequel to Sir Gibbie, but it did not work out. The two authors also exchanged books written by others and by themselves. At the Back of the North Wind, one of Macdonald’s better-known novels, played a special role in Clemens’ home. Twain’s children often convinced him to make up stories about the book’s main character, little Diamond. Scholars have also proposed similarities between Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Macdonald’s Lilith.
Macdonald became a friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, who took some inspiration from Macdonald’s fantasies for his The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Although Macdonald never got the chance to join Tolkien’s famous group for writers and thinkers known as the “Inklings,” he gathered around him various types of fellow writers. While his beliefs kept him from a typical career in the ministry, they enabled him to preach his message in other ways. He lectured and he wrote. His theology and his writing style attracted readers and inspired great thinkers. Macdonald brought about a new way to write. While many of his peers wrote entirely realistic works, Macdonald maintained a realistic message within a fantasy story. C.S. Lewis took a few cues from Macdonald when he wrote The Chronicles of Narnia. Others, such as Samuel Clemens, merely exchanged ideas with him. G.K. Chesterton looked to him as a role model.
Macdonald stood out from the crowd. In his lifetime, he wrote over 50 books. While his books are not as popular as they once were, his ideas live on in the writings of others. As readers sit down with a book by C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton, they are still invited to learn from the old, kind man with a flowing beard.
Works Cited
Chesterton, G K. "George Macdonald." The American Chesterton Society. 1924. 17 Apr. 2007
King, Don W. "The Childlike in George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis." Into the Wardrobe: a C.S. Lewis Web Site. Summer 1986. Dept. of English, Montreat C. 16 Apr. 2007
Lewis, C S. The Great Divorce. New York: Macmillan, 1976.
Lindskoog, Kathryn. "Mark Twain and George Macdonald: the Salty and the Sweet." The Mark Twain Journal 30 (1992). 17 Apr. 2007
Macdonald, George. Diary of an Old Soul. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. 3-4.
Macdonald, George. The Heart of George Macdonald. Ed. Rolland Hein. Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College, 2004.
Macdonald, George. "The Light Princess." The Complete Fairy Tales. Ed. U C. Knoepflmacher. Penguin Group, 1999.
Macdonald, George. The Princess and the Goblin. enotes.com. 25 Apr. 2007
Partridge, Mike. "George Macdonald: Theology." George Macdonald WWW Page. 2001. 17 Apr. 2007
Phillips, Michael. "The Original Writings of George MacDonald." George Macdonald & Michael Phillips. 17 Apr. 2007
Phillips, Michael. "Why New Edited Editions of George MacDonald's Books?" George Macdonald & Michael Phillips. 1982. 17 Apr. 2007
Shepherd, Victor. "Heritage." Sermons and Writings of Victor Shepherd. Prof. of Systematic and Historical Theology, Tyndale. 18 Apr. 2007
Trexler, Bob. "George Macdonald and the "Light Princess"" George Macdonald WWW Page. Mar.-Apr. 1999. 18 Apr. 2007
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