Although George MacDonald began his literary career as a poet and considered poetry to be the highest literary calling, he made his mark in Victorian literature as a novelist and fantasist. In his own day his realistic novels were popular and controversial critiques of materialistic society and Calvinist theology. But MacDonald's enduring reputation rests on the fairy tales which evince his poetic aspirations, his romantic imagination, and his religious mysticism. In tribute to his acknowledged master, C. S. Lewis observed of MacDonald: "What he does best is fantasy--fantasy that hovers between the allegorical and the mythopoeic. And this in my opinion he does better than any man."

MacDonald's best work recalled the personal and cultural experiences of his childhood and youth. Though his father, a tenant farmer, was a fair and generous man, he was also strict and undemonstrative. He was no substitute for the loving mother who...