
author
1824–1905
A Scottish writer, poet, and preacher, he helped shape modern fantasy long before the genre had a name. His stories of wonder and spiritual searching went on to influence writers including C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.

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by Elizabeth Lewis, George MacDonald

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Born in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, in 1824, George MacDonald became one of the great early masters of fantasy. He studied for the Congregational ministry and worked as a preacher, but he is best remembered for the imaginative books, poems, sermons, and essays he wrote across a long career.
MacDonald moved easily between writing for adults and for children. His best-known books include Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, The Princess and the Goblin, and Lilith. His fiction often blends fairy-tale adventure with questions of faith, suffering, love, and moral growth, giving his work a dreamlike quality that still feels distinctive today.
Although he was widely read in his own lifetime, his lasting importance comes in part from the writers he inspired. C. S. Lewis credited him as a major influence, and later fantasy authors also looked back to him as a pioneer whose stories opened new possibilities for the genre. MacDonald died in 1905, but his work continues to be read for both its warmth and its imagination.