George Macdonald: an Anthology (1946)

PREFACE BY C. S. LEWIS; DETAILED TABLE OF CONTENTS

My reaction has been just the reverse from that of "thomasandmary."
Within a few years of discovering Lewis, I let him open to me almost all the authors he loved. But I never learned to appreciate MacDonald.

This anthology, though, has been wonderful to me for over 30 years now. I still find myself often quoting him, sometimes thinking I am quoting CSL, ( )

Nothing like reading a book about your favorite author, written by your second-favorite author! :) ( )

I thought that I would love this book since I admire both authors, but it was a huge disappointment. I finally gave up on reading it and will put it in our church library. It seems as though George MacDonald wrote things in a lot more complicated way than necessary. ( )

C. S. Lewis, who edited and wrote the Preface to this volume referred to MacDonald as "my master". "This collection", Lewis writes, "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." The selections are single paragraphs, and sometimes single sentences. There are more than 300 of them, so I will not list their titles. Anyone who loves collecting quotations with find this a jewel of a book. For instance, selection 253 Absolute Being: "There is no word to represent that which is not God, no word for the where without God in it; for it is not; could not be." Or 127 Pessimism: "Low-sunk life imagines itself weary of life, but it is death, not life, it is weary of." Or 30 The Knowledge of God: "To say, Thou are God, without knowing what the Thou means -- of what use is it? God is a name only, except we know God."