The Complete Fairy Tales

by Macdonald, George (Author); Knoepflmacher, U. C. (Author)

• ISBN13: 9780140437379
• ISBN10: 0140437371
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

George MacDonald occupied a major position in the intellectual life of his Victorian contemporaries. The Complete Fairy Tales brings together all eleven of his shorter fairy stories as well as his essay "The Fantastic Imagination." The subjects are those of traditional fantasy: fairies good and wicked, and children journeying into unsettling dreamworlds or undertaking life-risking labours. But though they allude to familiar tales such as "Sleeping Beauty" and "Jack the Giant-Killer", MacDonald's stories are profoundly experimental and subversive. By questioning the concept that a childhood associated with purity, innocence, and fairy-tale "wonder" ought to be segregated from adult scepticism and disbelief, they invite adult readers to adopt the same elasticity and open-mindedness that come so naturally to a child. Enlisting paradox, play, and nonsense much like Lewis Carroll's Alice books, these fictions challenge us to question and rethink our assumptions, and offer an elusive yet meaningful alternative order to the dubious certitudes of everyday life.

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
Suggestions for Further Reading	xxi
A Note on the Texts	xxv
The Fantastic Imagination	1	(14)
From Adela Cathcart
The Light Princess	15	(39)
The Shadows	54	(27)
The Giant's Heart	81	(22)
From Dealings with the Fairies
Cross Purposes	103	(17)
The Golden Key	120	(29)
From At the Back of the North Wind
Little Daylight	149	(16)
Nanny's Dream	165	(12)
Diamond's Dream	177	(12)
Later Tales
The Carasoyn	189	(36)
The Wise Woman, or The Lost Princess: A Double Story	225	(79)
The History of Photogen and Nycteris: A Day and Night Mahrchen	304	(39)
Explanatory Notes	343