“One of MacDonald’s best and most satisfying books”—a Victorian-era fairy tale featuring a lonely princess and a miner’s son (Tor.com).
As editor of the magazine Good Words for the Young, MacDonald had a ready audience for “fairy tale” and “children’s” stories and produced some of his most famous titles during this period of his writing life. The third of his stories for the magazine, The Princess and the Goblin, published in 1872, is universally acclaimed as MacDonald’s best pure fairy tale, and has been enchanting readers for well over a century.
This story of princess Irene, her mysterious ageless namesake “grandmother,” and miner’s son Curdie surely provided inspiration for C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. G.K. Chesterton wrote of it in 1924, “I can really testify to a book that has made a difference to my whole existence, which has helped me to see—a vision of things—so real. Of all the stories I have read, it remains the most real, the most realistic, in the exact sense of the phrase the most like life. It is called The Princess and the Goblin, and it is by George MacDonald.” This edition for The Cullen Collection is unedited in any way.
“A little-known, girl-powered fairy tale that should be on your radar.”—Bustle
“A rich, vibrant tale.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
