SOURCE: "And the World Became Strange: Realms of Literary Fantasy," in The Aesthetics of Fantasy Literature and Art, edited by Roger C. Schlobin, University of Notre Dame Press and The Harvester Press, 1982, pp. 105-42.

In the excerpt below, Landow, examining the major works of John Ruskin. George MacDonald. George Meredith, William Morris, and William Hope Hodgson, maintains that these authors did not write simple escapist fiction, but instead used fantasy to comment on serious issues.

In order to examine the characteristics of literary fantasy since 1850 in the most economical manner, I propose in the following pages to survey this Victorian and modern literary mode in terms of one work by each of five major authors—John Ruskin (1819-1900), George MacDonald (1824-1905), George Meredith (1828-1909), William Morris (1834-1896), and William Hope Hodgson (1875-1918). These five works, each of which represents a particular form of fantastic fiction, will enable us...