George Macdonald

George Macdonald 1824-1905, Scottish author. Ordained a Congregational minister, he eventually abandoned his vocation to become a writer and free-lance preacher. His first published works were several volumes of poetry, including the narrative poem Within and Without (1855), Phantastes (1858), and Lilith (1895), the last two both moral allegories. Macdonald achieved his first real success with his novels of life in rural Scotland, notably David Elginbrod (1863), Alec Forbes (1865), and Robert Falconer (1867). His lasting reputation, however, rests upon his superb allegorical fairy stories for children; they include At the Back of the North Wind (1871), The Princess and the Goblin (1872), and The Princess and Curdie (1882).

Bibliography: See biography by his son Greville Macdonald (1924, repr. 1971).

MacDonald, George (1824–1905), was, in his own day, celebrated chiefly as poet, preacher, and lecturer, and as the author of numerous novels, including David Elginbrod (1863), Alec Forbes of Howglen (1865), and Robert Falconer (1868), often with banal melodramatic plots and cardboard villains, but illuminated by compassionate affection for humanity and nature. The Scottish setting of his best novels helped to found the ‘Kailyard School’ of fiction. MacDonald is now best known for his children's stories, including At the Back of the North Wind (1871) and The Princess and the Goblin (1872), and for his two allegorical fantasies for adults, Phantastes (1858) and Lilith (1895).