George MacDonald
| George MacDonald | |
|---|---|
George MacDonald in the 1860s
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| Born |
10 December 1824 Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, United Kingdom |
| Died | 18 September 1905 (aged 80) Ashtead, Surrey, England, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Minister, Writer (poet, novelist) |
| Nationality | Scottish/British |
| Period | 19th century |
| Genre | Children's literature |
| Notable works | Lilith, Phantastes, David Elginbrod, The Princess and the Goblin, At the Back of the North Wind |
George MacDonald (10 December 1824 – 18 September 1905) was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister. He was a pioneering figure in the field of fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow writer Lewis Carroll. His writings have been cited as a major literary influence by many notable authors including W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien,Walter de la Mare,E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. C. S. Lewis wrote that he regarded MacDonald as his "master": "Picking up a copy of Phantastes one day at a train-station bookstall, I began to read. A few hours later," said Lewis, "I knew that I had crossed a great frontier." G. K. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence".
Elizabeth Yates wrote of Sir Gibbie, "It moved me the way books did when, as a child, the great gates of literature began to open and first encounters with noble thoughts and utterances were unspeakably thrilling."
Even Mark Twain, who initially disliked MacDonald, became friends with him, and there is some evidence that Twain was influenced by MacDonald. Christian author Oswald Chambers wrote in his Christian Disciplines that "it is a striking indication of the trend and shallowness of the modern reading public that George MacDonald's books have been so neglected".
In addition to his fairy tales, MacDonald wrote several works on Christian apologetics including several that defended a view that has bee described as Christian Universalism.
George MacDonald was born on 10 December 1824 at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. His father, a farmer, was one of the MacDonalds of Glen Coe, and a direct descendant of one of the families that suffered in the massacre of 1692. The Doric dialect of the Aberdeenshire area appears in the dialogue of some of his non-fantasy novels.
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