George MacDonald (10 December 1824 – 18 September 1905) was a Scottish author, poet and ChristianCongregationalminister. He became a pioneering figure in the field of modernfantasy literature and the mentor of fellow-writerLewis Carroll. In addition to hisfairy tales, MacDonald wrote several works ofChristian theology, including several collections ofsermons.
George MacDonald was born on 10 December 1824 inHuntly,Aberdeenshire, Scotland, to George MacDonald, manufacturer, and Helen MacKay. His father, a farmer, was descended from theClan MacDonald of Glen Coe and a direct descendant of one of the families that suffered in themassacre of 1692.[1]
MacDonald grew up in an unusually literate environment: one of his maternal uncles,Mackintosh MacKay, was a notable Celtic scholar, editor of theGaelic Highland Dictionary and collector of fairy tales and Celticoral poetry. His paternal grandfather had supported the publication of an edition ofJames Macpherson'sOssian, the controversial epic poem based on theFenian Cycle ofCeltic Mythology and which contributed to the starting of EuropeanRomanticism. MacDonald's step-uncle was a Shakespeare scholar, and his paternal cousin another Celtic academic. Both his parents were readers, his father harbouring predilections forIsaac Newton,Robert Burns,William Cowper, Chalmers,Samuel Taylor Coleridge, andCharles Darwin, to quote a few, while his mother had received a classical education which included multiple languages.[2]
An account cited how the young George suffered lapses in health in his early years and was subject to problems with his lungs such asasthma,bronchitis and even a bout oftuberculosis.[3] This last illness was considered a family disease and two of MacDonald's brothers, his mother, and later three of his own children died from the illness.[4] Even in his adult life, he was constantly traveling in search of purer air for his lungs.[5]
MacDonald grew up in theCongregational Church, with an atmosphere ofCalvinism. However, his family was atypical, with his paternal grandfather aCatholic-born, fiddle-playing, Presbyterian elder; his paternal grandmother an Independent church rebel; his mother was a sister to the Gaelic-speaking radical who became moderator of the Free Church, while his step-mother, to whom he was also very close, was the daughter of a priest of theScottish Episcopal Church.[2]
MacDonald graduated from theKing's College, Aberdeen in 1845 with a degree in chemistry and physics.[6] He spent the next several years struggling with matters of faith and deciding what to do with his life.[7] His son, biographer Greville MacDonald, stated that his father could have pursued a career in the medical field but he speculated that lack of money put an end to this prospect.[8] It was only in 1848 that MacDonald began theological training at Highbury College for the Congregational ministry.[9][10]
MacDonald was appointed minister ofTrinity Congregational Church,Arundel, in 1850,[9][10] after briefly serving as a locum minister in Ireland.[7] However, his sermons—which preached God's universal love and that everyone was capable of redemption—met with little favour[11] and hisstipend was cut in half.[9] In May 1853, MacDonald tendered his resignation from his pastoral duties at Arundel.[12] Later he was engaged in ministerial work inManchester, leaving that because of poor health.[9] An account cited the role ofLady Byron in convincing MacDonald to travel toAlgiers in 1856 with the hope that the sojourn would help turn his health around.[12] When he got back, he settled in London and taught for some time at the University of London.[9] MacDonald was also for a time editor ofGood Words for the Young.
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MacDonald is often regarded as the founding father of modern fantasy writing.[11]His best-known works arePhantastes (1858),The Princess and the Goblin (1872),At the Back of the North Wind (1868–1871), andLilith (1895), all fantasy novels, andfairy tales such as "The Light Princess", "The Golden Key", and "The Wise Woman". MacDonald claimed that "I write, not for children, but for the child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five."[13] MacDonald also published some volumes of sermons, the pulpit not having proved an unreservedly successful venue.[9]
After his literary success, MacDonald went on to do a lecture tour in the United States in 1872–1873, after being invited to do so by a lecture company, theBoston Lyceum Bureau. On the tour, MacDonald lectured about other poets such asRobert Burns, Shakespeare, andTom Hood. He performed this lecture to great acclaim, speaking in Boston to crowds in the neighbourhood of three thousand people.[14]
George MacDonald with son Ronald (right) and daughter Mary (left) in 1864. Photograph byLewis Carroll
MacDonald served as a mentor toLewis Carroll; it was MacDonald's advice, and the enthusiastic reception ofAlice by MacDonald's many sons and daughters, that convinced Carroll to submitAlice for publication.[15] Carroll, one of the finest Victorian photographers, also created photographic portraits of several of the MacDonald children.[16] MacDonald was also friends withJohn Ruskin and served as a go-between in Ruskin's long courtship withRose La Touche.[15] While in America he was befriended byLongfellow andWalt Whitman.[17]
MacDonald's use offantasy as a literary medium for exploring the human condition greatly influenced a generation of notable authors, includingC. S. Lewis, who featured him as a character in hisThe Great Divorce.[18] In his introduction to his MacDonald anthology, Lewis speaks highly of MacDonald's views:
This collection, as I have said, was designed not to revive MacDonald's literary reputation but to spread his religious teaching. Hence most of my extracts are taken from the three volumes ofUnspoken Sermons. My own debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another: and nearly all serious inquirers to whom I have introduced it acknowledge that it has given them great help—sometimes indispensable help toward the very acceptance of the Christian faith. ...
I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself. Hence his Christ-like union of tenderness and severity. Nowhere else outside the New Testament have I found terror and comfort so intertwined. ...
In making this collection I was discharging a debt of justice. I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him. But it has not seemed to me that those who have received my books kindly take even now sufficient notice of the affiliation. Honesty drives me to emphasize it.[19]
Others he influenced includeJ. R. R. Tolkien,Madeleine L'Engle, andDavid Lindsay.[2][9][20] MacDonald's non-fantasy novels, such asAlec Forbes, had their influence as well; they were among the first realistic Scottish novels, and as such MacDonald has been credited with founding the "kailyard school" of Scottish writing.[21]
G. K. Chesterton citedThe Princess and the Goblin as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence,[22] ... in showing "how near both the best and the worst things are to us from the first ... and making all the ordinary staircases and doors and windows into magical things."[23]
In 1877 he was given acivil list (monastic poverty/civil duty) pension.[24] From 1879 he and his family lived inBordighera,[25] in a place much loved by British expatriates, theRiviera dei Fiori inLiguria, Italy, almost on the French border. In that locality there also was anAnglican church, All Saints, which he attended.[26] Deeply enamoured of the Riviera, he spent 20 years there, writing almost half of his whole literary production, especially thefantasy work.[27] MacDonald founded a literary studio in that Ligurian town, naming itCasa Coraggio (Bravery House).[28] It soon became one of the most renowned cultural centres of that period, well attended by British and Italian travellers, and by locals,[29] with presentations of classic plays and readings ofDante andShakespeare often being held.[30]
In 1900 he moved into St George's Wood,Haslemere, a house designed for him by his son, Robert, its building overseen by his eldest son,Greville.[31]
George MacDonald died on 18 September 1905 inAshtead, Surrey, England.[31] He was cremated inWoking, Surrey, and his ashes were buried inBordighera, in the English cemetery, along with his wife Louisa and daughters Lilia and Grace.[31]
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MacDonald married Louisa Powell in Hackney in 1851, with whom he raised a family of eleven children: Lilia Scott (1852–1891), Mary Josephine (1853–1878), Caroline Grace (1854–1884), Greville Matheson (1856–1944), Irene (1857–1939), Winifred Louise (1858–1946), Ronald (1860–1933), Robert Falconer (1862–1913), Maurice (1864–1879), Bernard Powell (1865–1928), and George Mackay (1867–1909).
His sonGreville became a noted medical specialist, a pioneer of the Peasant Arts movement, wrote numerous fairy tales for children, and ensured that new editions of his father's works were published.[32] Another son, Ronald, became a novelist.[33] His daughter Mary was engaged to the artistEdward Robert Hughes until her death in 1878. Ronald's son,Philip MacDonald (George MacDonald's grandson), became a Hollywood screenwriter.[34]
Tuberculosis caused the death of several family members, including Lilia, Mary Josephine, Grace, and Maurice, as well as one granddaughter and a daughter-in-law.[35] MacDonald was said to have been particularly affected by the death of Lilia, his eldest.
There is a blue plaque on his home at 20 Albert Street, Camden, London.[36]
According to biographer William Raeper, MacDonald's theology "celebrated the rediscovery of God as Father, and sought to encourage an intuitive response to God and Christ through quickening his readers' spirits in their reading of the Bible and their perception of nature."[37]
MacDonald's oft-mentioneduniversalism is not the idea that everyone will automatically be saved, but is closer toGregory of Nyssa in the view that all will ultimately repent and be restored to God.[38]
MacDonald appears to have never felt comfortable with some aspects of Calvinist doctrine, feeling that its principles were inherently "unfair";[15] when the doctrine ofpredestination was first explained to him, he burst into tears (although assured that he was one of theelect).[citation needed] Later novels, such asRobert Falconer andLilith, show a distaste for the idea that God's electing love is limited to some and denied to others.[citation needed]
Chesterton noted that only a man who had "escaped" Calvinism could say that God is easy to please and hard to satisfy.[clarification needed][23]
MacDonald rejected the doctrine ofpenal substitutionary atonement as developed byJohn Calvin, which argues that Christ has taken the place of sinners and is punished by the wrath of God in their place, believing that in turn it raised serious questions about the character and nature of God.[39] Instead, he taught that Christ had come to save people from their sins, and not from a Divine penalty for their sins: the problem was not the need to appease a wrathful God, but the disease of cosmic evil itself.[citation needed] MacDonald frequently described theatonement in terms similar to theChristus Victor theory.[clarification needed][citation needed] MacDonald posed the rhetorical question, "Did he not foil and slay evil by letting all the waves and billows of its horrid sea break upon him, go over him, and die without rebound—spend their rage, fall defeated, and cease? Verily, he made atonement!"[40]
MacDonald with his wife Louisa in 1901 at their 50th wedding anniversary
MacDonald was convinced that God does not punish except to amend, and that the sole end of His greatest anger is the amelioration of the guilty.[41] As the doctor uses fire and steel in certain deep-seated diseases, so God may use hell-fire if necessary to heal the hardened sinner. MacDonald declared, "I believe that no hell will be lacking which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children."[42] MacDonald posed the rhetorical question, "When we say that God is Love, do we teach men that their fear of Him is groundless?" He replied, "No. As much as they were will come upon them, possibly far more. ... The wrath will consume what theycall themselves; so that the selves God made shall appear."[43]
However, true repentance, in the sense of freely chosen moral growth, is essential to this process, and, in MacDonald's optimistic view, inevitable for all beings (seeuniversal reconciliation).[citation needed]
MacDonald states his theological views most distinctly in the sermon "Justice", found in the third volume ofUnspoken Sermons.[44]
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The following is an incomplete list of MacDonald's published works in the genre now referred to as fantasy:[according to whom?]
MacDonald, George (1875).The Wise Woman: A Parable. London: Strahan and Co. (Published also as "The Lost Princess: A Double Story"; or as "A Double Story".)
Multiple versions with different content ofThe Light Princess and other Stories
The Gifts of the Child Christ and Other Tales (1882; republished asStephen Archer and Other Tales) 1908 edition by Edwin Dalton, London was illustrated byCyrus Cuneo andG. H. Evison.
Guild Court: A London Story (1868; republished in edited form asThe Prodigal Apprentice). 1908 edition by Edwin Dalton, London was illustrated byG. H. Evison. Available online atHathi Trust.[45]
Robert Falconer (1868; republished in edited form asThe Musician's Quest)
The Seaboard Parish (1869), a sequel toAnnals of a Quiet Neighbourhood
The Vicar's Daughter (1871), a sequel toAnnals of a Quiet Neighborhood andThe Seaboard Parish. 1908 edition by Sampson Low and Company, London was illustrated byCyrus Cuneo andG. H. Evison.
The History of Gutta Percha Willie, the Working Genius (1873; republished in edited form asThe Genius of Willie MacMichael), usually called simplyGutta Percha Willie
Malcolm (1875; republished in edited form byMichael Phillips asThe Fisherman's Lady))
St. George and St. Michael (1876; edited by Dan Hamilton and republished asThe Last Castle)
Thomas Wingfold, Curate (1876; republished in edited form asThe Curate's Awakening)
The Marquis of Lossie (1877; republished in edited form asThe Marquis' Secret), the second book ofMalcolm
MacDonald, George; Matheson, Greville; Macdonald, John Hill (1883). MacDonald, George (ed.).A threefold cord : poems by three friends. London: W Hughes.OCLC4118583. privately printed, with Greville Matheson and John Hill MacDonald
MacDonald, George (1887).Poems. New York: E. P. Dutton.
The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, 2 Volumes (1893)
^abJohnson, Rachel (2014).A Complete Identity: The Youthful Hero in the Work of G. A. Henty and George MacDonald. Cambridge, UK: The Lutterworth Press. p. 43.ISBN9780718893590.
^Sparks, Tabitha (2009).The Doctor in the Victorian Novel: Family Practices. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 50.ISBN9780754668022.
^abcdefg This article incorporates text from afree content work. Licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 ([[[Wikipedia:CC-BY-SA]] license statement/permission]). Text taken fromBiography of MacDonald, PoemHunter.com.
MacDonald, Ronald (1989).From a northern window : a personal remembrance of George MacDonald. Eureka, California: Sunrise Books.ISBN9780940652330.OCLC21023229.
MacDonald, George; Sadler, Glenn Edward (1994).An expression of character:the letters of George MacDonald. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.ISBN9780802804990.
Ankeny, Rebecca Thomas (2000).The story, the teller, and the audience in George MacDonald's fiction. Studies in British literature. Vol. 44. Lewiston, N.Y: Edwin Mellen Press.ISBN9780773477285.
Gerold, Thomas (2006). "Die Gotteskindschaft des Menschen Die theologische Anthropologie bei George MacDonald".Studien zur systematischen Theologie und Ethik (in German).47. Münster: Lit Verlag.
Gray, W. (1998). "The Angel in the House of Death: Gender and Identity in George MacDonald's Lilith". In Hogan, A.; Bradstock, A. (eds.).Women of Faith in Victorian Culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN978-1-349-26751-4.
Gray, William N. (1996). "George MacDonald, Julia Kristeva, and the Black Sun".Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900.36 (4):877–893.doi:10.2307/450980.ISSN0039-3657.JSTOR450980.
Hein, Rolland (1993).George MacDonald : Victorian mythmaker. Nashville: Star Song Publishing Group.ISBN9781562330460.OCLC28027567.
Lewis, C. S. (2011).Surprised by joy: the shape of my early life; The four loves. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.ISBN9780547599397.OCLC694830039.
McGillis, Roderick (1992).For the childlike: George MacDonald's fantasies for children. West Lafayette, Indiana : Metuchen, N.J: Children's Literature Association; Scarecrow Press.ISBN9780810824591.OCLC25630114.
MacDonald, George; Neuhouser, David L. (1990).George MacDonald : selections from his greatest works. New York: Victor Books.OCLC1280796867.
Wolff, Robert Lee (1961).The golden key : a study of the fiction of George MacDonald. New Haven: Yale University Press.OCLC361159.
Reis, R. H. (September 1961). "The Golden Key: A Study of the Fiction of George MacDonald Robert Lee Wolff (review)".Nineteenth-Century Fiction.16 (2):182–185.doi:10.2307/2932484.JSTOR2932484.
Worthing, Mark William; MacDonald, George (2016).Phantastes : George MacDonald's classic fantasy novel. Northcote, Victoria: Stone Table Books.ISBN9780995416130.OCLC976431182.
Worthing, Mark William (2016).Narnia, Middle-earth and the Kingdom of God : a history of fantasy literature and the christian tradition Narnia, Middle-earth and the Kingdom of God : a history of fantasy literature and the christian tradition. Northcote, Victoria: Stone Table Books.ISBN9780995416116.OCLC1048126271.
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This article incorporates text from afree content work. Licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 ([[[Wikipedia:CC-BY-SA]] license statement/permission]). Text taken fromBiography of MacDonald, PoemHunter.com.
