The Princess and the Goblin - Hardcover

George MacDonald

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688066046 ISBN 13: 9780688066048

Publisher: William Morrow & Co., Inc. / Books of Wonder, 1986

Synopsis

Afterword by Peter Glassman. "In the facsimile of the 1920 edition, exquisite illustrations enhance the story of a young princess who is protected by her friend from goblins that live beneath the castle."--Booklist. A Books of Wonder(R) Classic.

About this title

Review:

As always with George MacDonald, everything here is more than meets the eye: this in fact is MacDonald's grace-filled vision of the world. Said to be one of J.R.R. Tolkien's childhood favorites, The Princess and the Goblin is the story of the young Princess Irene, her good friend Curdie--a minor's son--and Irene's mysterious and beautiful great great grandmother, who lives in a secret room at the top of the castle stairs. Filled with images of dungeons and goblins, mysterious fires, burning roses, and a thread so fine as to be invisible and yet--like prayer--strong enough to lead the Princess back home to her grandmother's arms, this is a story of Curdie's slow realization that sometimes, as the princess tells him, "you must believe without seeing." Simple enough for reading aloud to a child (as I've done myself more than once with my daughter), it's rich enough to repay endless delighted readings for the adult. --Doug Thorpe

About the Author:

George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a popular Scottish lecturer and writer of novels, poetry, and fairy tales. Born in Aberdeenshire, he was briefly a clergyman, then a professor of English literature at Bedford and King's College in London. W. H. Auden called him "one of the most remarkable writers of the nineteenth century."

Jessie Willcox Smith (1863-1935) was one of the most popular and successful American illustrators of the early twentieth century. A student at Howard Pyle's Brandywine School of American Illustration, her hundreds of magazine illustrations and more than forty illustrated books include Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses (1905), Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies (1916), and George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind (1919) and The Princess and the Goblin (1920).

Peter Glassman is the owner of Books of Wonder, the New York City bookstore and publisher specializing in new and old imaginative books for children. He is also the editor of the Books of Wonder Classics, a series of deluxe facsimiles and newly illustrated editions of timeless tales. And he is the author of The Wizard Next Door, illustrated by Steven Kellogg. Mr. Glassman lives in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co., Inc. / Books of Wonder
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0688066046
• ISBN 13: 9780688066048
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208
• Illustrator: Jessie Willcox Smith