George MacDonald 
Phantastes 

Phantastes – George Mac Donald – This classic tale by master Scottish story teller George Macdonald Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women is a fantasy novel first published in London in 1858.The story is about the main character character Anodos, a young man who is pulled into a dreamlike world and there searches for his ideal of female beauty, Anodos has many adventures and temptations while in the other world, until he is finally ready to give up his ideals.George Mac Donald was the inspiration for authors, such as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L’Engle. C. S. Lewis wrote that he regarded Mac Donald as his ‘master’: ‘Picking up a copy of Phantastes one day at a train-station bookstall, I began to read. A few hours later, ‘ said Lewis, ‘I knew that I had crossed a great frontier.’ G. K. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had ‘made a difference to my whole existence.’

About the author

George Mac Donald was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister.He was educated at Aberdeen University and after a short and stormy career as a minister at Arundel, where his unorthodox views led to his dismissal, he turned to fiction as a means of earning a living. He wrote over 50 books.Known particularly for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels, Mac Donald inspired many authors, such as G.K. Chesterton, W. H. Auden, J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Madeleine L’Engle. Lewis wrote that he regarded Mac Donald as his ‘master’: ‘Picking up a copy of Phantastes one day at a train-station bookstall, I began to read. A few hours later, ‘ said Lewis, ‘I knew that I had crossed a great frontier.’ G. K. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had ‘made a difference to my whole existence.’Elizabeth Yates wrote of Sir Gibbie, ‘It moved me the way books did when, as a child, the great gates of literature began to open and first encounters with noble thoughts and utterances were unspeakably thrilling.’