Macdonald, George
Macdonald, George,
1824–1905, Scottish author. Ordained a Congregational minister, he eventually abandoned his vocation to become a writer and freelance preacher. His first published works were several volumes of poetry, including the narrative poem Within and Without (1855), Phantastes (1858), and Lilith (1895), the last two both moral allegories. Macdonald achieved his first real success with his novels of life in rural Scotland, notably David Elginbrod (1863), Alec Forbes (1865), and Robert Falconer (1867). His lasting reputation, however, rests upon his superb allegorical fairy stories for children; they include At the Back of the North Wind (1871), The Princess and the Goblin (1872), and The Princess and Curdie (1882).Bibliography
See biography by his son Greville Macdonald (1924, repr. 1971).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia™ Copyright © 2013, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Macdonald, George
Born Dec. 10, 1824, in Huntly, Aberdeenshire; died Sept. 18, 1905, in Ashtead, Surrey, England. Scottish writer.
A former clergyman, Macdonald turned to literature in the mid-1850’s. He wrote many novels drawn from Scottish life that are full of gentle humor and soft colors (David Elginbrod, 1863; Alec Forbes, 1865), in which he celebrates daily life in the villages and peasant labor. In his poems, written in a Scottish dialect, philosophical and religious motifs predominate. Macdonald popularized the works of R. Burns.
WORKS
The Lost Princess: A Double Story. London-New York, 1965.REFERENCES
Parker, W. M. Modern Scottish Writers. Freeport (New York), 1968.Wittig, K. The Scottish Tradition in Literature. Edinburgh-London, 1958.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.