Adelia Cathcart has an illness of the spirit -- perhaps an illness of the soul. No one can scry the secret of her malady. Until someone notices Adelia seems for a moment to come back to life as someone tells a story. We should read her stories, he says. Beautiful, beautiful stories. And these are the stories that bring Adelia back from her deathbed: stories like the tale of the Light Princess, the tale of a cursed girl like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty who weighs no more than a breeze. She has an illness of the spirit, too -- an illness both like and unlike Adelia's. . . .
George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister.
Known particularly for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels, George MacDonald inspired many authors, such as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. G. K. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence."
Even Mark Twain, who initially disliked MacDonald, became friends with him, and there is some evidence that Twain was influenced by MacDonald.
MacDonald grew up influenced by his Congregational Church, with an atmosphere of Calvinism. But MacDonald never felt comfortable with some aspects of Calvinist doctrine; indeed, legend has it that when the doctrine of predestination was first explained to him, he burst into tears (although assured that he was one of the elect). Later novels, such as Robert Falconer and Lilith, show a distaste for the idea that God's electing love is limited to some and denied to others.
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