The Gospel in George MacDonald: Selections from His Novels, Fairy Tales, and Spiritual Writings

by George MacDonald, Marianne Wright (Editor)

Overview

If you don’t have the time to read all the novels of George MacDonald, the great Scottish storyteller who inspired C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, Mark Twain, W. H. Auden, and J. R. R. Tolkien, this anthology is a great place to start.

These selections from MacDonald’s novels, fairy tales, and sermons reveal the profound and hopeful Christian vision that infuses his fantasy worlds and other fiction.

Newcomers will find in these pages a rich, accessible sampling. George MacDonald enthusiasts will be pleased to find some of the writer’s most compelling stories and wisdom in one volume. Drawn from books including Sir Gibbie, The Princess and the Goblin, Lilith, and At the Back of the North Wind, the selections are followed by reflections from G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis and accompanied by classic illustrations of Maurice Sendak (print edition only).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780874867664
Publisher:	Plough Publishing House, The
Publication date:	09/12/2016
Series:	The Gospel in Great Writers
Pages:	358
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

George MacDonald (1824-1905) was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. After making a name for himself as a preacher, he left the ministry in 1850 to pursue a literary career, writing over fifty books to support his family of eleven children. To this day, MacDonald’s novels, fantasies, and children's stories are cherished for their literary quality and spiritual insight; C. S. Lewis has said that MacDonald’s influence can be found in every book he wrote.

Editorial Reviews

11/07/2016
Scottish author George MacDonald was a major influence on famous writers such as C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, W.H. Auden, and G.K. Chesterton, but was remarkably unheralded during his own time and quietly toiled at his vocation as a writer for decades without much popular recognition. In this collection, Wright (Anni: Letters and Writings of Annemarie Wachter) brings together some of the most profound and lasting selections from his long career. MacDonald managed to accomplish much while helping his wife of 51 years raise their 11 children, and these writings show a diverse cross-section of his interests. His Christian theology, an important driving force in his work, was unadorned but profound. He discovered the work of God in the mundane events of every day, which he dubbed the “holy present,” and this ideology infuses his work. The themes MacDonald addresses include repentance, finding God, redemption, worship, and faith, all of which flow through his entire corpus, regardless of the genre in which he writes. This collection portrays a faith-filled, loving man who sincerely embraced his role as a child of God and shared the fruits of that journey with the world. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

When he comes to be more carefully studied as a mystic, as I think he will be when people discover the possibility of collecting jewels scattered in a rather irregular setting, it will be found, I fancy, that he stands for a rather important turning point in the history of Christendom. —G. K. Chesterton

I’m delighted that Plough has produced this amazingly imaginative volume! Congratulations to Marianne Wright on her first-rate editorial vision and implementation. —Dr. Ian Randall, Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide

In his power to project his inner life into images, events, beings, landscapes which are valid for all, he is one of the most remarkable writers of the nineteenth century. —W. H. Auden

I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself. . . . Nowhere else outside the New Testament have I found terror and comfort so intertwined. I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master. —C. S. Lewis

Could be the greatest work of theology you read this year….The gospel for MacDonald was not a book, but rather a person, the person of Jesus Christ Himself, the image of the Father. —Tessa Carman, Mere Orthodoxy

From the Publisher

I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself. . . . Nowhere else outside the New Testament have I found terror and comfort so intertwined. I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master.

C. S. Lewis

In his power to project his inner life into images, events, beings, landscapes which are valid for all, he is one of the most remarkable writers of the nineteenth century.

W. H. Auden

When he comes to be more carefully studied as a mystic, as I think he will be when people discover the possibility of collecting jewels scattered in a rather irregular setting, it will be found, I fancy, that he stands for a rather important turning point in the history of Christendom.

G. K. Chesterton