Point of View

Lilith by George MacDonald is told through a Mr. Vane, a recent graduate of Oxford University, specializing in the physical sciences, with preference for the pioneers of science—Ptolemy, Dante, Francis and Roger Bacon, and Robert Boyle—over scientists more his contemporaries, e.g., Charles Darwin or James Clerk Maxwell. Vane is most interested in coordinating science with the metaphysical. Vane shows familiarity with the writings of Shakespeare and sufficient familiarity with the Judeo-Christian scriptures to be able to quote or paraphrase the most famous parts, but evidences no formal religion. His social life appears to have been stunted by being orphaned in early childhood and growing up in unnamed boarding schools. He prefers books to people and his only passion is for horses, which he buys but never sells.

Vane finds himself thrown into a strange other-world co-existing in time and place with...