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Though no longer a household name, his works (particularly his fairy tales and fantasy novels) have inspired deep admiration in such notables as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Madeleine L'Engle.
C. S. Lewis wrote that he regarded MacDonald as his "master". Picking up a copy of Phantastes one day in a train station, he began to read; "a few hours later," said Lewis later, "I knew I had crossed a great frontier." G. K. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence".Elizabeth Yates wrote of Sir Gibbie that "[i]t moved me the way books did when as a child ... Now and then a book is read as a friend, and after it life is not the same ... Sir Gibbie did this to me." Even Mark Twain, who initially despised MacDonald, became friends with him upon their meeting for the first time, and there is some evidence that Twain was influenced by MacDonald (see links below for an article on the subject).
The man who was to inspire such feeling was born on December 10, 1824 at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, ScotlandScotland or in Scottish Gaelic, Alba is a country and former independent kingdom of northwest Europe, and one of the four nations comprising the United Kingdom. Scotland occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. Scotland took part in a p. His father, a farmer, was one of the MacDonaldThe Scottish Clan MacDonald (motto: Per Mare Per Terras) is split into several branches including MacDonald of the Isles, MacDonald of Clanranald, MacDonald of Sleat, MacDonald of Keppoch, MacDonald of Ardnamurchan and McDonell of Glengarry. In 1692, a nus of Glen CoeGlen Coe is a glen in the Highlands of Scotland. It lies in the southern part of the Lochaber area of Highland Council Area, and is considered part of the traditional county of Argyllshire. It is often considered one of the most spectacular and beautiful, and a direct descendant of one of the families that suffered in the massacre of 1692The Massacre of Glencoe was an incident at Glen Coe, Scotland in 1692, during the era of the Glorious Revolution and the Jacobite Rising. About 78 MacDonalds were killed by the army which had accepted their hospitality, for not promptly pledging allegianc. Macdonald grew up influenced by his Congregational Church, with an atmosphere of CalvinismEmmanuel de Witte Calvinism is a Protestant Christian doctrine named after John Calvin. Calvin had international influence on the development of the doctrine of the Protestant Reformation, beginning at the age of 25, when he started work on his first edit. But he was never entirely happy with Calvinism; legend has it that when the doctrine of predestinationPredestination is a religious idea, under which the relationship between the beginning of things and the destiny of things is discussed. Its religious nature distinguishes it from other ideas concerning determinism and free will, and related concepts. was first explained to him, he burst into tears (although assured that he was one of the elect). Later novels, such as Robert Falconer, show a similar distaste for many Calvinist ideas.
He took his degree at the University of AberdeenThe University of Aberdeen is a university in Aberdeen, Scotland, founded by William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen in 1495 as Kings College. In April 1593 a second institute of higher learning in Aberdeen, Marischal College, was founded by George Keith,, and then migrated to London, studying at Highbury College for the Congregational ministry.
In 1850 he was appointed pastor of Trinity Congregational Church, Arundel, but his sermons (preaching God's universal love and the possibility that none would, ultimately, be damned) met with little favour and his salary was cut in half. Later he was engaged in ministerial work in Manchester. He left that because of poor health, and after a short sojourn in Algiers he settled in London and had taught for some time at the University of London. MacDonald was also for a time editor of Good Words for the Young, and lectured successfully in the United States during 1872- 1873.
His most well-known works are Phantastes, The Princess and the Goblin, At the Back of the North Wind , and Lilith, all fantasy novels, and his fairy tales — "The Light Princess", "The Golden Key", and "The Wise Woman", to name a few. "I write, not for children," he wrote, "but for the child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five." MacDonald also published some volumes of sermons (the pulpit not having proved an unreservedly successful venue).
MacDonald also served as a mentor to Lewis Carroll; it was MacDonald's advice, and the enthusiastic reception of Alice by the MacDonald children that convinced Carroll to submit Alice for publication. MacDonald was also friends with John Ruskin and acquainted with most of the literary luminaries of the day; a surviving group photograph shows him with Tennyson, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Trollope, Ruskin, Lewes, and Thackeray.
In 1877 he was given a civil list pension. He died on September 18, 1905.
As hinted above, MacDonald's use of fantasy as a literary medium for exploring the human condition greatly influenced a generation of such notable authors as C. S. Lewis (appearing as a character in The Great Divorce), J. R. R. Tolkien, and Madeleine L'Engle. MacDonald's more realistic novels, such as Alec Forbes, had their influence as well; they were among the first realistic Scottish novels, and as such MacDonald has been credited with founding the "kailyard school" of Scottish writing.