George MacDonald

George MacDonald (Huntly, 1824 – Ashtead, 1905) was a Scottish writer, poet and Congregational minister. Though less known today than he deserves, he is regarded as one of the pioneers of modern fantasy literature. His fairy tales and fantasy novels inspired J. R. R. Tolkien, W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L'Engle.

He was born in Huntly, in north-east Scotland, into a family of strong religious convictions with ties to the MacDonald clan. His mother had received a classical education, and one of her brothers was a Celtic scholar, so the household was unusually bookish. He grew up in the Calvinist tradition but never felt at ease with the doctrine of predestination. He studied at the University of Aberdeen and then trained for the ministry at Highbury College in London.

In 1850 he became pastor of the Congregational church in Arundel, but his sermons on God's universal love were poorly received, and his salary was halved. He later worked in Manchester, where ill health forced him to stop. Lung problems ran in his family, so he sought purer air, spending time in Algiers before settling in London, where he taught at the University of London. He also edited Good Words for the Young.

His work moves between fantasy and realism. Phantastes (1858), The Princess and the Goblin (1872), At the Back of the North Wind (1871) and Lilith (1895) are his best-known fantasy books, alongside tales such as 'The Light Princess' and 'The Golden Key'. He also wrote realist Scottish novels such as Alec Forbes, among the first of their kind in the country and precursors of the so-called kailyard school. He published volumes of sermons too. He used fantasy to explore the human condition, and said he wrote not for children but for the childlike, whether five or seventy-five.

His theology leaned towards universalism: he held that, in the end, everyone would repent and return to God. This is closer to Gregory of Nyssa than to the idea that all are saved automatically. He also rejected aspects of Calvinism that he found unjust.

From 1879 he lived with his family in Bordighera, on the Ligurian Riviera, where he spent about twenty years and wrote much of his work. There he founded Casa Coraggio, a cultural centre that drew many visitors. He mentored Lewis Carroll, whose Alice was encouraged by MacDonald's advice. He died in Ashtead in 1905. His influence reaches C. S. Lewis, who called him his 'master' and made him a character in The Great Divorce.