Phantastes

George MacDonald's first major fiction work, in MacDonald's words "a sort of fairy tale for grown people," Phantastes was published in 1858. This unusual fantasy, subtitled a "fairie romance," is one of MacDonald's most mysterious and esoteric titles. The book's narrator, Anodos, enters Fairy Land through a mysterious old wooden secretary. From that beginning, he embarks on a dream-like series of encounters that follow the form of an epic quest, though the purpose and destination of his journey remain obscure and are never fully clarified. Two volumes of poetry prior to this had set MacDonald apart as a talented young author to watch in England's literary circles. Sales of Phantastes, however, proved a disappointment, and thus MacDonald ultimately turned to the writing of realistic fiction in the 1860s. When young atheist C.S. Lewis discovered Phantastes in 1916, within a few hours he said he knew he "had crossed a great frontier." MacDonald's unusual fantasy set Lewis on the road toward his eventual conversion to Christianity, and forever after he referred to MacDonald as his "master." In spite of its poor initial reception among Victorian readers, Lewis's affection for it established Phantastes as one of MacDonald's most enduring and studied works in literary and academic circles. This new edition is one of six fantasy titles in The Cullen Collection that has not been edited or updated in any way and is reproduced exactly in its original text.