George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a Scottish author, poet and Christian minister.

Introduction by C. S. Lewis “Lilith is equal if not superior to the best of Poe,” wrote W. H. Auden in his introduction to the 1954 reprint of George MacDonald’s Lilith, which was first published in 1895. It is the story of Mr. Vane, an orphan and heir to a large house—a house in which he has a vision that leads him through a large old mirror into another world. In chronicling the five trips Mr. Vane makes to this other world, MacDonald hauntingly explores the ultimate mystery of evil.

Introduction by C. S. Lewis In October 1857, George MacDonald wrote what he described as “a kind of fairy tale, in the hope that it will pay me better than the more evidently serious work.” This was Phantastes—one of MacDonald’s most important works; a work which so overwhelmed C. S. Lewis that a few hours after he began reading it he knew he “had crossed a great frontier.” The book is about the narrator’s (Anodos) dream-like adventures in fairyland, where he confronts tree-spirits and the shadow, sojourns to the palace of the fairy queen, and searches for the spirit of the earth. The tale is vintage MacDonald, conveying a profound sadness and a poignant longing for death.

George MacDonald (1824-1905), the great nineteenth-century innovator of modern fantasy, influenced not only C. S. Lewis but also such literary masters as Charles Williams and J. R. R. Tolkien. Though his longer fairy tales Lilith and Phantastes are particularly famous, much of MacDonald’s best fantasy writing is found in his shorter stories. In this volume editor Glenn Sadler has compiled some of MacDonald’s finest short works—marvelous fairy tales and stories certain to delight readers familiar with MacDonald and those about to meet him for the first time.

The Gray Wolf is one volume in the four-volume collection of the complete fantasy stories of George MacDonald, the great nineteenth-century innovator of modern fantasy, whose works influenced C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams.

This is one volume in the four-volume collection of the complete fantasy stories of George MacDonald, the great nineteenth-century innovator of modern fantasy, whose works influenced C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams.