George MacDonald (1824–1905) was born #OTD, 10 Dec. One of the earliest theorists of the fantastic, & grandfather of modern fantasy literature, he was read & admired by CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien & Madeleine L’Engle, among others
🎨 : Cecilia Harrison (1863–1941)
🧵 1/5
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/3082
#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thCentury #fantasty #childrenslit #CSLewis #Tolkien
“If we think about how women are portrayed in [MacDonald’s] fiction, we can see that women are shown to, repeatedly, rescue men. Men are taught by women, challenged by women, and also challenged to think about women in different ways.”
—An interview with Dr Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson on George MacDonald’s life & work.
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https://www.radixmagazine.com/2021/11/09/interview-with-kirstin-jeffrey-johnson/
#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thCentury #fantasty #childrenslit
Mark Twain & George MacDonald: The Salty & the Sweet
“Both SIR GIBBIE and HUCKLEBERRY FINN explore questions of ethics & truth through the life of an unusually bright & unusually unfortunate boy […] and they have at least twenty plot elements in common.”
—Kathryn Lindskoog explores the connections between the works of George MacDonald & Mark Twain.
3/5
https://www.discovery.org/a/853/
#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thCentury #fantasty #childrenslit #Twain #MarkTwain
Beautiful Terrors
“The sheer imaginative force of LILITH makes nonsense of our everyday notions of ‘good writing’. MacDonald aims not to make us read, but to make us dream.”
—David Melville on George MacDonald’s last – & very strange – major work of fiction
4/5
https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2010/11/beautiful-terrors-george-macdonald-and-lilith/
A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean. –George MacDonald, ‘The Fantastic Imagination’1 In the 1871 children’s fantasy At the Back of the North Wind, George MacDonald’s boy hero Diamond is asked what he thinks of a story. He replies, without hesitation, that “any story […]
RETHINKING GEORGE MACDONALD
Contexts & Contemporaries
16 essays on MacDonald’s place in the Victorian literary scene, his engagement with the works of his contemporaries, & his interest in the social, political, & theological movements of his age—also online via Project MUSE
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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/occasional_papers/rethinking_george_macdonald/
#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thCentury #fantasty #childrenslit
Many of George MacDonald’s works are available for download via @gutenberg_org
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/127
#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thCentury #fantasty #childrenslit
Assoc for Scottish Literature
Project Gutenberg