George Mac Donald titles

[Lobolover]

Supernatural Fiction Database, George Macdonald

Lists a considerable number of "Other" fantastic fiction besides Phantastes and Lilith, does anyone know which, if any of these are worth reading ?

 

[j d worthington]

Supernatural Fiction Database, George Macdonald

Lists a considerable number of "Other" fantastic fiction besides Phantastes and Lilith, does anyone know which, if any of these are worth reading ?

In this case (as in some others on that site), I think it is more "other", period; not "other fantastic fiction". Aside from the two mentioned, the majority of Macdonald's fantastic pieces, iirc, were fairy tales and the like -- many of them quite wonderful in their own odd way, but not the sort of thing you're likely to find appealing. The bulk of his fiction, however, was general fiction, nonfantastic in nature.....

 

[GOLLUM]

Well I don't if this helps at all but last year I purchased the George Macdonald Treasury. I've not had time to read through it yet (large book) but it contains the following fanatsy:

The Princess and the Goblin
The Princess and Curdie
The Light Princess
Phantastes
The Giant's Heart
At the Back of the North Wind
The Golden Key
Lilith

Cheers...

 

[j d worthington]

Those are all good pieces, GOLLUM; the only problem is, except for Phantastes and Lilith, they are "children's books", so to speak. As I said, they are quite wonderful in their way (especially At the Back of the North Wind and The Princess and the Goblin, in my opinion), but not quite the sort of spectral literature I think Lobo is looking for here. (Correct me if I'm wrong, Lobo....)

 

[GOLLUM]

OH...OK thanks for the clarification.

I'm sure I'll still enjoy them.....when I finally get time to read them GRRRR...

 

[j d worthington]

OH...OK thanks for the clarification.

I'm sure I'll still enjoy them.....when I finally get time to read them GRRRR...

With your taste for fantasy, I have no doubt you will. Macdonald is well worth reading for anyone who enjoys fantastic literature -- though they should be warned that he can be a little heavy with his allegory at times. Still, some excellent things there, and he really deserves more mention than he gets these days....

 

[GOLLUM]

Yes agreed. I've read Phantastses and of course The Golden Key but as he's such a signifcant figure in the Genre, we might even say the 'father' of modern Fantasy, that I wanted to check out and indeed have in my library a decent reprsentation of his work. The treasury seemed to fit that bill.

Cheers for now....

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I like his fairy tales. "The Light Princess" has always been one of my favorite humorous fairy tales, and on a more serious note I absolutely love "The Day Boy and the Night Girl."

And while The Princess and the Goblin is a little on the precious side, the sequel The Princess and Curdie is quite wonderful. I reread it a year or so ago, and was surprised at how good it was, since I hadn't cared for it much when I read it as a teenager (parts of it were, apparently, over my head, even though it is a children's book).

 

[GOLLUM]

Sounds good Teresa, will have to move it towards the top of my very sizeable TBR pile.

 

[Lobolover]

J.D- except it's listed on the "other" section and not the "children's titles" section on the supernatural fiction database, which only even mentions titles that have some form of the supernatural of fantastic to them .

Though alot of these apear to be multi volume sets, I do wonder what length an average book of some such set would be .

 

[j d worthington]

J.D- except it's listed on the "other" section and not the "children's titles" section on the supernatural fiction database, which only even mentions titles that have some form of the supernatural of fantastic to them .

Read my post again, Lobo. I didn't say these were children's tales; I said that "the majority of his fantastic pieces" were children's tales (with the exceptions of the two novels mentioned in your opening post). As for what I said about the "other" books:

In this case (as in some others on that site), I think it is more "other", period; not "other fantastic fiction".

I've seen the same happen with some of the other writers listed on that site; not everything listed there is fantastic or supernatural fiction, and in Macdonald's case, that seems to be very much the case. As I noted, the bulk of his fiction was non-fantastic, save for the two novels Phantastes and Lilith, or the children's books and fairy tales.

You may find these helpful:

George MacDonald WWW Page

The George MacDonald Informational Web

George MacDonald and Michael Phillips

George MacDonald - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Though alot of these apear to be multi volume sets, I do wonder what length an average book of some such set would be .

Having read a few such books, not necessarily all that long. Melmoth, for instance, was (iirc) a 3-volume novel originally:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-volume_novel