George MacDonald is the acknowledged forefather of later fantasy writers. This collection of sixteen essays examines MacDonald's place in the Victorian literary scene, his engagement with his contemporaries and his interactions with the social, political and theological movements of his age.

George MacDonald is generally remembered as a benevolent preacher who wrote fairy-tale books for children. Closer reading, however, reveals one of the most startlingly inventive, slyly subversive Scottish writers of the nineteenth century. His writings for children emerged from his own long struggle with faith and doubt in the face of multiple bereavements, chronic illness, and the persistent threat of early death. Haunted Childhoods in George MacDonald reconsiders death and divine love in MacDonald’s writings for children. It examines his private letters and public sermons, obscure early...