At the Back of the North Wind - Softcover

MacDonald, George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1604594527 ISBN 13: 9781604594522

Publisher: SMK Books, 2023

Synopsis

At the Back of the North Wind is a brilliant allegorical tale by George MacDonald. The protagonist Diamond befriends the beautiful and majestic North Wind. Her powers bring change where ever she goes. At first this awesome power seems to be a terrible force, but it becomes clear that all of the changes she has caused with her amazing power have been for good. A timeless classic.

About this title

About the Author

George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet, minister, lecturer, and pioneering writer of fantasy whose work helped shape both children's literature and modern imaginative fiction. He was born in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, in 1824, and was raised in a Calvinist religious culture that he later transformed in his own writing into a warmer, more hopeful vision of divine love. After studying at King's College, Aberdeen, he became a Congregational minister, but his theology was considered too broad and generous by some of his congregation, and he eventually left the pulpit as a formal profession.MacDonald's religious imagination did not leave him when he left regular ministry. Instead, it became the central force in his fiction, sermons, poems, essays, and fairy tales. His work often treats fantasy not as escape, but as revelation: a way of making spiritual truth visible through princesses, goblins, shadows, dreams, winds, hidden countries, and mysterious guides. In books such as Phantastes, The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Lilith, and At the Back of the North Wind, MacDonald created symbolic worlds where childhood, suffering, moral courage, and divine mystery meet.MacDonald was also deeply connected to the literary world of Victorian Britain. He encouraged Lewis Carroll, whose Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was reportedly first tested on MacDonald's children, and he became admired by later writers for the strange purity and spiritual daring of his imagination. His influence can be seen especially in C. S. Lewis, who called MacDonald his "master," but it also extends through the broader traditions of Christian fantasy, fairy-tale literature, and mythic storytelling.During his lifetime, MacDonald wrote across many forms: realistic novels, fantasy romances, children's books, fairy tales, sermons, poetry, and literary essays. His work was not always commercially easy, and his family often faced financial strain, but he remained remarkably productive and committed to the belief that story could awaken moral and spiritual perception. He died in 1905, leaving behind a body of work that continues to speak to readers drawn to fantasy with depth, tenderness, strangeness, and faith.

Edition details

• Publisher: SMK Books
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1604594527
• ISBN 13: 9781604594522
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 219