Informing the Inklings: George MacDonald and the Victorian Roots of Modern Fantasy

Magdalen College, where C.S. Lewis taught in Oxford, was an appropriate site for the "Informing the Inklings" conference hosted by the George MacDonald Society. Participants explored how MacDonald and fellow literary figures such as S.T. Coleridge, Lewis Carroll, Charles Kingsley, and Andrew Lang paved the way for 20th century fantasists such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. The twelve essays collected in this book examine this rich lineage of mythmakers. Contributors include Stephen Prickett, Malcolm Guite, Trevor
Hart, and Jean Webb as well as other Inklings experts. Like the authors they write about, these scholars believe imaginative fiction has
the power to enrich and even change our lives.

"This marvelous collection of essays appeals to both the intellect and the imagination, drawing us to consider stories from a past generation as doorways for meaning and transformation today. The connection between George MacDonald and his circle to C. S. Lewis and his circle has never been made so clear."
Bruce R. Johnson, General Editor of Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"Unlike many books about the Inklings, which primarily just rehash what has already been published before, Informing the Inklings offers original and important insights over and over again." Timothy Larsen, Wheaton College, author of George McDonald in the Age of Miracles

"The scope of these well-arranged and very accessible pieces is extraordinary, bringing out a central purpose in the Inklings - the making of myth - with its debt to nineteenth-century fantasy."
Colin Duriez, author of The Oxford Inklings

"I was once told that "If you don't know George, you don't know Jack." Having read this fine collection, I know more about both Jack and George (and a good many other writers besides), and I 'm grateful."
Michael Ward, University of Oxford, co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis.