Phantastes
George MacDonald, author of Phantastes
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| Author | George MacDonald |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Smith, Elder & Co. |
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Publication date
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1858 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 323 pp |
Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women is a fantasy novel written by George MacDonald, first published in London in 1858. It was later reprinted in paperback by Ballantine Books as the fourteenth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in April 1970.
The story centres on the character Anodos ("pathless", or "ascent" in Greek) and takes its inspiration from German Romanticism, particularly Novalis. The story concerns a young man who is pulled into a dreamlike world and there hunts for his ideal of female beauty, embodied by the "Marble Lady". Anodos lives through many adventures and temptations while in the other world, until he is finally ready to give up his ideals.
The edition published in 1905 was illustrated by Pre-Raphaelite painter Arthur Hughes.
C.S. Lewis wrote, concerning his first reading of Phantastes at age sixteen, "That night my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptized; the rest of me[,] not unnaturally, took longer. I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for by buying Phantastes."
The tale starts the day after Anodos' twenty-first birthday. He discovers an ancient fairy lady (whom he learns could be his grandmother) in the desk which he opens with a key that he inherited as a birthright from his late father. After the fairy shows him Fairy Land in a vision, Anodos awakes the next day to find that his room, crafted after natural elements, is taking literal form and transforming into a wood. He discovers that he has been transported to Fairy Land.
Anodos then encounters a woman and her daughter in a cottage who warn him about the Ash Tree and the Alder Tree, who seek to destroy him. He is told that the spirits of these trees can leave their tree-hosts and wander throughout Fairy Land. He then explores the world of the fairies, which live in flowers, causing them to glow. The flowers, he is told, die if the fairies leave. He then has a nightmarish encounter with the spirit of the Ash Tree, escapes, and finds rest in the warmth and love of the Beech Tree's spirit.
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