SOURCE: “The Imaginative Fiction,” in George MacDonald, Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1972, pp. 75-105.

In the following essay, Reis examines the symbolism and prose style that distinguish MacDonald's fantasy fiction from his conventional writings.

I of Any Length, for Any Age

Compared with his conventional novels, MacDonald's “imaginative fictions” are few, but that deplorable circumstance has its compensating advantages. It means, for instance, that I shall be able to treat these few stories with the fuller attention which they deserve because of their superior merit as literature by presenting a more or less detailed summary of each important work in the corpus of MacDonald's imaginative fiction.

To postulate, moreover, a hypothetical composite or “typical” specimen of MacDonald's fantasies is impossible. Each story has its own peculiarity, its uniqueness, and mere collective treatment would certainly do violence to that singularity. Furthermore, the imaginative corpus naturally separates itself into two general subcategories...