About ten years after the publication of The Princess and the Goblin, MacDonald wrote a sequel, The Princess and Curdie. In it Curdie journeys to a city to rescue Irene's father, the king, who is being slowly poisoned by treacherous counselors. Curdie fights the treasonous servants, the churlish townspeople, and an invading army. Irene's role in the action is perfunctory; she is merely a passive bystander. And because Grandmother's role is also much reduced, the story lacks the spiritual emphasis of the earlier work, focusing instead on social satire. In the portraits of the townspeople, we see a community whose social ties are determined by greed and envy. MacDonald relies less on his story to express his theme and often directly addresses the reader. Fortunately, the overt didacticism can be brilliant at times, as when the unfaithful are said to believe in nothing but their dinner...