Admired by J. R. R Tolkien and C. S. Lewis and considered by W. H. Auden to be "the only English children's book in the same class as the Alice books," The Princess and the Goblin is a classic example of nineteenth-century children's literary fairy tales. This is an ageless tale of courage and loyalty, beauty and honor, mystery and divinity, and above all, the conflict of good and evil. The discovery of a secret stairway running to the top of the castle leads Princess Irene to a revelation even more weighty than the fiendish plans of the goblin community that miner boy Curdie has discovered. Will the Princess and Curdie understand the significance of what they have found, or will Harelip and the goblins successfully execute their evil plan? Recommended for children aged 4 to 94.
George MacDonald (1824-1905), Scottish children’s author and novelist, was educated at Aberdeen University before training as a Congregational minister. Finding his own individualistic views unacceptable to his parish, he gradually turned to literature. He published over fifty volumes of fiction, verse, children’s stories, and sermons but is remembered chiefly for his fairy stories, including The Princess and the Goblin (1872) and its sequel The Princess and Curdie (1873).
