Books in Brief: George Macdonald: Scotland’s Beloved Storyteller

George Macdonald: Scotland’s Beloved Storyteller, by Michael R. Phillips (Bethany House, 400 pp., $14.95)

Having carefully edited a dozen of George Macdonald’s novels into works more accessible to the modern reader, Michael Phillips has now published a biography of Macdonald himself, the literary figure G. K. Chesterton called “one of the three or four greatest men of the nineteenth century.” Macdonald exercised a direct influence on many notable authors, especially the Oxford Inklings, through such works of fiction and poetry as Phantasies, Lilith, and “The Golden Key.” Yet relatively few readers nowadays are familiar with him, and this Phillips has sought to remedy. In this new and thorough biography, Macdonald’s early life, education, marriage, truncated Christian ministry, literary career, and death are handled in a crisp, matter-of-fact manner sprinkled with interesting anecdotes. At one point, for instance, the reader is directed to the little-known story of Macdonald’s friendship with Mark Twain, and of the two writers’ agreed-upon, but never consummated, collaborative novel. Surely this would have been one of the oddest literary partnerships in British-American history: Twain, throughout his life a rough-edged, militant skeptic and cynic; and Macdonald, to the bitter end a devout and (by all accounts) godly man. Phillips has produced a fine biography of the man Madeleine L’Engle called “the grandfather of us all—all of us who struggle to come to terms with truth through imagination.”

About the Author

James E. Person Jr.

Mr. Person is the author of Russell Kirk: A Critical Biography of a Conservative Mind and Earl Hamner: From Walton's Mountain to Tomorrow.

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George Macdonald: Scotland’s Beloved Storyteller, by Michael R. Phillips (Bethany House, 400 pp., $14.95)

Having carefully edited a dozen of George Macdonald’s novels into works more accessible to the modern reader, Michael Phillips has now published a biography of Macdonald himself, the literary figure G. K. Chesterton called “one of the three or four greatest men of the nineteenth century.” Macdonald exercised a direct influence on many notable authors, especially the Oxford Inklings, through such works of fiction and poetry as Phantasies, Lilith, and “The Golden Key.” Yet relatively few readers nowadays are familiar with him, and this Phillips has sought to remedy. In this new and thorough biography, Macdonald’s early life, education, marriage, truncated Christian ministry, literary career, and death are handled in a crisp, matter-of-fact manner sprinkled with interesting anecdotes. At one point, for instance, the reader is directed to the little-known story of Macdonald’s friendship with Mark Twain, and of the two writers’ agreed-upon, but never consummated, collaborative novel. Surely this would have been one of the oddest literary partnerships in British-American history: Twain, throughout his life a rough-edged, militant skeptic and cynic; and Macdonald, to the bitter end a devout and (by all accounts) godly man. Phillips has produced a fine biography of the man Madeleine L’Engle called “the grandfather of us all—all of us who struggle to come to terms with truth through imagination.”