Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 8476 Plough Quarterly • Autumn 2016 I n a w i de ly r e produc e d photo­ graph from an 1876 book titled English Celebrities of the Nineteenth Century, George MacDonald appears among a group of nine British literary giants. 1 Charles Dickens is there, of course, as well as Anthony Trollope, Wilkie Collins, and W. M. Thackeray. The photo­ graph –  a montage created by a commercial publisher – is a visual monument to Victorian eminence: big black-cloaked men with big beards who wrote big, famous books. When this picture was first published, it was apparently uncontroversial to rank George MacDonald among the great writers of his age. Not so today. It has been at least a century since MacDonald has been widely read, and scholars outside his small fan base tend to approach his works as period pieces rather than as literature. So it is reasonable to ask: can we truly consider MacDonald a great writer? C. S. Lewis, like many of Mac­ Donald’s admirers, had his doubts, writing that: “MacDonald has no place in [literature’s] first rank – perhaps not even in its second.” 2 Today’s reader, when first confronted with Mac­ Donald’s writing, may well be tempted to agree. His books are long, his nineteenth-century mannerisms do not all age well, and several of his novels include patches of intimidating Scots dialect. All this. Yet mention MacDonald’s name, and it will not be long before you find yourself speaking with someone who, like C.S. Lewis, has found MacDonald’s books “beyond price” despite their literary deficiencies. 3 Lewis goes on: I dare not say that he is never in error; but to speak plainly I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continu- ally close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself. Hence his Christ-like union of tenderness and severity. Nowhere else outside the New Testament have I found terror and comfort so intertwined. 4 I was introduced to George MacDonald early in life by my grandfather, Richard Arnold Mommsen. He could read aloud better than This article is taken from the introduction to the new Plough title The Gospel in George MacDonald: Selections from His Novels, Fairy Tales, and Spiritual Writings, ed. Marianne Wright (2016). The author is a contributing editor to this magazine. plough.com/macdonald Learning to Love Goodness In Praise of George MacDonald M A R I A N N E W R I G H T Images from British Library (public domain)