Editing George MacDonald (section)

==Writing career==
{{expand section | with a sourced, scholarly summary of MacDonald's major genres and works, providing summaries of the published perspectives of others, regarding them | small = no|date=March 2017}}

MacDonald's first realistic novel ''[[David Elginbrod]]'' was published in 1863.<ref name=bbc/>

MacDonald is often regarded as the founding father of modern fantasy writing.<ref name=bbc/>
His best-known works are ''[[Phantastes]]'' (1858), ''[[The Princess and the Goblin]]'' (1872), ''[[At the Back of the North Wind]]'' (1868–1871), and ''[[Lilith (novel)|Lilith]]'' (1895), all fantasy novels, and [[fairy tales]] such as "[[The Light Princess]]", "[[The Golden Key (MacDonald book)|The Golden Key]]", and "[[The Lost Princess|The Wise Woman]]". MacDonald claimed that "I write, not for children, but for the child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five."<ref>{{cite book |author=MacDonald, George |year=1893 |title=A Dish of Orts: Chiefly Papers on the Imagination, and on Shakespeare |publisher=Project Gutenberg |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9393 |access-date=6 October 2016}}</ref> MacDonald also published some volumes of sermons, the pulpit not having proved an unreservedly successful venue.<ref name="PoemHunter" />

After his literary success, MacDonald went on to do a lecture tour in the United States in 1872–1873, after being invited to do so by a lecture company, the [[Boston Lyceum Bureau]]. On the tour, MacDonald lectured about other poets such as [[Robert Burns]], Shakespeare, and [[Tom Hood]]. He performed this lecture to great acclaim, speaking in Boston to crowds in the neighbourhood of three thousand people.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Seper |first1=Charles |title=USA Lecture Tour |url=http://georgemacdonald.info/lecture_tour.html |website=The George MacDonald Informational Web |access-date=20 June 2018}}</ref>

[[File:Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 'Lewis Carroll' - 'Mary J. MacDonald dreaming of her father (George MacDonald) and brother Ronald' - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|right|George MacDonald with son Ronald (right) and daughter Mary (left) in 1864. Photograph by [[Lewis Carroll]]]]

MacDonald served as a mentor to [[Lewis Carroll]]; it was MacDonald's advice, and the enthusiastic reception of ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland|Alice]]'' by MacDonald's many sons and daughters, that convinced Carroll to submit ''Alice'' for publication.<ref name=reis>Reis, Richard H. (1972).  ''George MacDonald'', pp. 25–34. Twayne Publishers, Inc.</ref> Carroll, one of the finest Victorian photographers, also created photographic portraits of several of the MacDonald children.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Seper |first1=Charles |title=Lewis Carroll's association with George MacDonald |url=http://georgemacdonald.info/carroll.html |website=The George MacDonald Informational Web |access-date=20 June 2018}}</ref> MacDonald was also friends with [[John Ruskin]] and served as a go-between in Ruskin's long courtship with [[Rose La Touche]].<ref name=reis/> While in America he was befriended by [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow|Longfellow]] and [[Walt Whitman]].<ref>{{cite book |author1=Rolland Hein |author2=Frederick Buechner |author-link1=Rolland Hein |author-link2=Frederick Buechner |title=George MacDonald: Victorian Mythmaker |date=10 November 2014 |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers |location=Eugene |isbn=978-1625645074 |page=XVII |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5TxgBQAAQBAJ |access-date=20 June 2018}}</ref>

MacDonald's use of [[fantasy fiction|fantasy]] as a literary medium for exploring the human condition greatly influenced a generation of notable authors, including [[C. S. Lewis]], who featured him as a character in his ''[[The Great Divorce]]''.<ref>{{cite book |author = Lindskoog, Kathryn Ann |year=2001 |title=Surprised by C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald & Dante: An Array of Original Discoveries |page=72 |publisher=Mercer University Press|  url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Vj6xqdnBAEC&pg=PA72 |access-date=April 21, 2014|isbn=9780865547285 }}</ref> In his introduction to his MacDonald anthology, Lewis speaks highly of MacDonald's views: 
{{blockquote |This collection, as I have said, was designed not to revive MacDonald's literary reputation but to spread his religious teaching. Hence most of my extracts are taken from the three volumes of ''Unspoken Sermons''. My own debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another: and nearly all serious inquirers to whom I have introduced it acknowledge that it has given them great help—sometimes indispensable help toward the very acceptance of the Christian faith.&nbsp;...

I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually 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. ...

In making this collection I was discharging a debt of justice. I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him. But it has not seemed to me that those who have received my books kindly take even now sufficient notice of the affiliation. Honesty drives me to emphasize it.<ref name="LewisAnth">{{cite book |editor=C. S. Lewis |editor-link=C. S. Lewis |date=1947 |title=George MacDonald: An Anthology}}</ref>}}

Others he influenced include [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] and [[Madeleine L'Engle]].<ref name="Johnson2014" /><ref name="PoemHunter" /> MacDonald's non-fantasy novels, such as ''Alec Forbes'', had their influence as well; they were among the first realistic Scottish novels, and as such MacDonald has been credited with founding the "[[kailyard school]]" of Scottish writing.<ref>Sutherland, D. [https://books.google.com/books?id=1chZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA339 "The Founder of the New Scottish School."] In ''The Critic'', Volumes 30–31, 15 May 1897, p. 339. Retrieved 21 April 2014.</ref>

Chesterton cited ''[[The Princess and the Goblin]]'' as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence,{{sfn|Macdonald|1924|p=9}} ... in showing "how near both the best and the worst things are to us from the first ... and making all the ordinary staircases and doors and windows into magical things."{{sfn|Macdonald|1924|loc=Intro}}