 |
| Photographed by Lewis Carroll, 1852 |
This year also marks the centenary of the first major biography of him, George MacDonald and His Wife, by his son, Greville MacDonald. George MacDonald died on 18 September 1905, in Ashtead, Surrey, England, at the age of eighty.
Wormwoodiana today tips the hat in remembrance of MacDonald. I show a few of my own shelves of MacDonald books, one of criticism, the other of a large selection of his collected works, as put out in fine cloth-bound editions by Johannesen Printing and Publishing of California in the 1990s. Most notable of their editions is a two volume Variorum Edition of Lilith, publishing for the first time multiple manuscript versions. At bottom I have reproduced MacDonald's bookplate from Greville MacDonald's book.
Wow! That set of MacDonald's complete works is truly impressive. A couple of years ago, I read Phantastes, most of the fairy tales (my favorite is the very amusing "The Light Princess") and Lilith. Let me hasten to say that I turned the pages of Lilith but understanding much of it was another matter. It out does Hodgson's The NIght Land and Lindsay's Voyage to Arcturus in its density and imaginative strangeness. Ultimately, I didn't like the book much and was sorry I didn't. Overall, I came away admiring the imaginative power that MacDonald brought to all his work while feeling I'd need to spend a lot of effort to learn to appreciate it. I'm only likely to reread the fairy tales, which I have in a handsome collection compiled by Roger Lancelyn Green.
ReplyDelete