Anodos inherits his father’s estate, including a set of keys to a dark oak cabinet that unlocks a portal to Fairy Land. It tells the story of the strange journey of Anodos, who at the portentous age of 21 is a young man ready to cross the border into adulthood. But Phantastes is not nursery room reading. In the Victorian era fantasy was largely seen as a genre for children. The full title of MacDonald’s novel tells us much about the era in which it was written. Regardless, Phantastes is without question one of the cornerstones of the genre, and stands poised at the cusp of early works containing fantastic elements, to those that feature fully developed, independent secondary worlds.

I happen to agree with our own Matthew David Surridge that Phantastes is likely not the first pure fantasy novel, for the fact that, although it involves another world, it “never quite the real world behind.” It’s the stuff of dreams, with a clear path back to earth. George MacDonald’s Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women (1858) could be the first fantasy story … but then, what about Shakespeare’s The Tempest, or Edmund Spencer’s The Faerie Queene, or the Epic of Gilgamesh, or … you get the picture. Madeleine L Engle said, Surely, George MacDonald is the grandfather of us all all of us who struggle to come to terms with truth through fantasy.Advancing a claim that something is the “first” anything is daring a slippery slope, but saying a book is the “first fantasy” is rather like taking a leap onto a Slip and Slide greased with the gelatin exudate of Cthulhu. Tolkien called his fairy tales stories of power and beauty. Lewis said, 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.

MacDonald s fantasy novel as well as his other works have had major influence on many authors who considered him their mentor:Ĭ. All-at-once written with an innocent whimsy and soulful yearning, the heart of Anodos journey through fairyland reveals a spiritual quest that requires a surrender of the self. I write, not for children, wrote George MacDonald, but for the child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five. Lewis and Tolkien, considered one of George MacDonald s most important works, is the story of the young man, Anodos, and his adventures in fairyland which ultimately reveal the human condition.

Book phantastes