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The Wise Woman tells the double story of two spoiled girls and the parents who spoiled them. A mysterious and powerful wise woman steps in to help the girls escape their destinies, but with little success. The great beauty of this short novel is graceful portrayal of how parents can harm their children by raising them without care and how difficult it is for children (and wise women) to find restoration to their true selves.
Considered the grandfather...
2) Guild Court
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Following on the heels of Robert Falconer's hugely influential and controversial story, Guild Court, written concurrently with Falconer and published the same year, is one of MacDonald's lesser known novels. A love story set in London, its portrait of many intertwining and quirky lives in and around a city court is perhaps the most Dickens-like of MacDonald's novels. Though not a book that enjoyed such widespread circulation as his others, Guild Court...
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The character of Thomas Wingfold is introduced in this preeminent of George MacDonald's English novels, a young curate suddenly brought face-to-face with the hypocrisy of having sought the pulpit as a profession rather than a spiritual calling. Wingfold's prayerful journey into faith highlights MacDonald's most powerful "theological novel." We also meet the dwarf Joseph Polwarth, Wingfold's spiritual mentor and one of MacDonald's most memorable humble...
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In George MacDonald's most well-known novel, published in 1868, the quest of young Robert Falconer for his father becomes a parallel quest to break free from the oppressive Calvinist theology of his grandmother. As he struggles to come to terms with the strict orthodoxy prevalent in Scotland for two centuries, the doctrine of hell looms as the great stumbling block in Robert's mind. His lifelong search reveals to Robert the groundbreaking truth that...
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Thematically linked to Mary Marston which preceded it, MacDonald here poignantly depicts the father-son relationship as he had earlier that of father and daughter. MacDonald's storytelling power again returns to the highlands of Scotland, setting his narrative in the hills south of Huntly. We encounter vivid descriptions of that wild terrain, including snowstorms, summer joys, harvests, along with MacDonald's trademark mysteries, inheritances, treasures,...
6) Home Again
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One of MacDonald's smaller novels in length, and neither so ambitious of scope or depth, Home Again from 1887 is loosely based on the prodigal son parable. It is the oft-told tale of an ambitious young man who thinks too highly of himself, falls under the spell of a duplicitous young woman, and must find his way "home." Though less complex than MacDonald's lengthier novels, everything he wrote radiated light. Even in its simplicity, this story of...
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This unique novel in the MacDonald collection, his only true historical novel, is set during the mid-17th century English civil war. MacDonald's use of the idiom and stylistic old-English of the post-Shakespearean era make this a slow read in the original. It is greatly enhanced in this new and updated edition by Michael Phillips. St. George and St. Michael is an enchanting love story that offers a unique and balanced perspective on a tumultuous and...
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This final installment of the Thomas Wingfold trilogy from 1891 adds yet further dimensions to the personal search for faith and the nature of belief, exemplified in the characters of Barbara Wilder and Richard Tuke. Both Barbara and Richard must ask whether or not God's existence is true, what God's character is like, and what demands are placed upon them as a result. Wingfold's conversations with Barbara probe the foundations of belief with depth...
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Although one of MacDonald's lesser-known books, The Elect Lady, published in 1888, stands out for the memorable relationship of godliness, trust, honesty, and humility between three children-Andrew and Sandy Ingram and their friend Dawtie-whose growth into adulthood MacDonald follows with simple yet moving power. Their relationships provide the foundation for MacDonald's wisdom to shine forth on the nature and purpose of the church, climaxing in the...
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Released in 1871 after At the Back of the North Wind, MacDonald's first realistic "young readers" novel follows the boyhood adventures of Ranald Bannerman up to the moment in his teens when he realizes that he is "not a man." Thus begins his growth into true manhood. MacDonald's editorship of the highly popular magazine Good Words for the Young in the late 1860s and early 1870s resulted in five young-reader stories, starting with At the Back of the...
11) The Portent
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The Portent was originally written for magazine serialization several years prior to its release in book form in 1864. Shorter than most of MacDonald's novels, this spooky tale of the Scottish "second sight" is a thorough spine-tingling ghost story worthy of the twilight zone. MacDonald's love of mysterious old castles and libraries plays a significant role in the story and is found in many of his books. In The Portent, first person narrator Duncan...
12) Malcolm
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This towering 1875 novel, set in the Scottish fishing village of Cullen, is considered by many as George MacDonald's fictional masterwork. The intricate tale is more true to place than any of MacDonald's books. As Malcolm is drawn into the web of secrets surrounding majestic Lossie House, with the marquis of Lossie and his tempestuous daughter Florimel at the center of them, we meet some of MacDonald's most memorable characters. Through them Malcolm...
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This dark realistic novel is somewhat puzzling in MacDonald's corpus of more uplifting works. Some of its disconcerting themes grew out of George and Louisa MacDonald's friendship with author John Ruskin during a troubled time in the latter's life. Some of the descriptive portions contained within this narrative, especially of the Swiss Alps, are among MacDonald's finest.
14) Salted with Fire
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MacDonald's final full length, realistic Scottish novel of 1897, is replete with dense Scottish dialect and spiritual themes. The repentance (through fire) of young minister James Blatherwick, who recognizes the sham of his pretended spirituality, is reminiscent of Thomas Wingfold's spiritual journey. It also embodies in fictional form one of MacDonald's signature themes from his first volume of Unspoken Sermons, "The Consuming Fire." Along with these...
15) David Elginbrod
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George MacDonald's first realistic novel, David Elginbrod, was published in 1863. Unable to get his poetry and fantasy published, one of MacDonald's publishers remarked, I tell you, Mr. MacDonald, if you would but write novels, you would find all the publishers saving up to buy them of you. Nothing but fiction pays. Eventually MacDonald decided to try his hand at realistic fiction, and his publisher's words proved prophetic within a few years publishers...
16) Far Above Rubies
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MacDonald's final "novella" of a scant 22,000 words was viewed as so insignificant at the time of its release in 1898 that it never appeared in book form in the U.K and is omitted from many lists of MacDonald's books. Though appearing in magazine form in Britain, its only book edition was published in the United States. For those with eyes to see, however, it reads as an autobiographical retrospective of the beginning of MacDonald's own writing life....
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MacDonald's second realistic novel written in the first person by a fictional female narrator, almost from its opening pages, The Flight of the Shadow feels somber and ominous. It is thus linked with The Portent from early in MacDonald's career, both books similar of length and style. Again MacDonald develops his familiar themes through the character of an orphan, who, without an earthly father, must yet discover the goodness of God's Fatherhood....
18) Heather and Snow
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This wonderful Scottish tale from 1893, not so expansive of theme and scope as some of MacDonald's lengthier Scottish stories, is yet poignantly moving in its own way. The descriptions of the highlands and the lives of its people are the equal of those in Castle Warlock and What's Mine's Mine. Who, after reading the story of Kirsty Barclay in Heather and Snow, will forget her brother Steenie's cry after "the bonny man!" Indeed, Kirsty is one of MacDonald's...
19) Phantastes
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George MacDonald's first major fiction work, in MacDonald's words "a sort of fairy tale for grown people," Phantastes was published in 1858. This unusual fantasy, subtitled a "fairie romance," is one of MacDonald's most mysterious and esoteric titles. The book's narrator, Anodos, enters Fairy Land through a mysterious old wooden secretary. From that beginning, he embarks on a dream-like series of encounters that follow the form of an epic quest, though...
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