Resources

Below is a collection of biographical resources about George MacDonald. To jump to a section, please select one of the following:

Biographical Books

George MacDonald, Scotland’s Beloved Storyteller, by Michael Phillips

In 1987, Michael Phillips produced the first major biography of George MacDonald written in the United States. In the thirty years since that time, his George MacDonald, Scotland’s Beloved Storyteller has come to be recognized as a lasting and significant contribution to the understanding of MacDonald’s life. Phillips’ “interpretive portrayal” looks beyond mere events and probes the essential spiritual themes that informed the corpus of MacDonald’s writings.

Available from third parties through Amazon

George MacDonald: A Writer’s Life—Cullen Collection, Volume 38

This major new work is the longest biography written about the Scotsman, focusing on the development and progressive publication of his written works, explaining how the events of his life contributed to the evolution of that legacy. Novelist, editor, and publisher of numerous volumes by and about his mentor, Michael Phillips is recognized as a man with keen insight into George MacDonald’s heart and message. He brings his wisdom to bear on the individual volumes of The Cullen Collection of the Fiction of George MacDonald, pointing out each book’s essential themes, and offering insights into how each title in MacDonald’s fictional corpus can most perceptively be read.

Available from Amazon

George MacDonald and His Wife, by Greville MacDonald

The classic 1924 biography by MacDonald’s son Greville, with an introduction by G.K. Chesterton.

London, with Photolithography, from Johannesen Printing & Publishing

From A Northern Window: A Personal Remembrance of George MacDonald by His Son, by Ronald MacDonald, Sunrise Masterline Series, 1989

Available from third parties through Amazon

George MacDonald: A Biographical and Critical Appreciation, by Joseph Johnson, Haskell House reprint of 1906 edition

Available from third parties through Amazon

George MacDonald, by William Raeper, Lion Publishing plc, 1987

The first major biography of George MacDonald since Greville’s George MacDonald and His Wife in 1924.

Available from third parties through Amazon

George MacDonald: Victorian Mythmaker, by Rolland Hein, with Foreword by Frederick Buechner

Originally published in 1993. Rolland Hein, a professor emeritus from Wheaton College and noted MacDonald scholar, spent over a decade reading and researching thousands of letters, personal papers, and other documents in writing this seminal biography.

Paperback edition from Wipf & Stock
New hand-bound hardcover editions from Johannesen Printing & Publishing

George MacDonald: Images of His World, by Rolland Hein with photographs by Larry E. Fink, Pasture Spring Press, 2004

A beautiful coffee-table style book featuring a brief biography by the renowned Rolland Hein, author of the full-length biography noted above, filled with gorgeous color photographs of MacDonald sites in Scotland, England, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, plus quotations from his fiction, poetry, and letters.

Available from Amazon

An Expression of Character: The Letters of George MacDonald, edited by Glenn Edward Sadler, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994

MacDonald scholar Glenn Edward Sadler drew from more than 3,000 of MacDonald’s letters to friends and family in compiling this well-organized book. The letters are organized chronologically, and Sadler provides a brief but informative introduction to each section to orient the reader to the events and circumstances of MacDonald’s life.

Available from Amazon

Preface to George MacDonald An Anthology (1946)—C.S. Lewis

This thirteen-page summary and analysis of MacDonald’s life is excellent, though it contains Lewis’s erroneous and damaging assessment of MacDonald’s realistic fiction and his craft as a novelist. This is one of the few instances where the great man’s objectivity failed him. In spite of Lewis’s unfortunate, and I must repeat erroneous conclusion that MacDonald’s realistic novels are less significant than his imaginative writings, it is in this Preface, lauding MacDonald’s wisdom and power as a communicator of spiritual truth, that Lewis makes his oft-quoted statement, “I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer…to the Spirit of Christ…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.”

Available from Amazon

George MacDonald, Cullen, and Malcolm (2019)—Michael and Judy Phillips

A portrait of George MacDonald’s Cullen visits of 1873-74 and the writing of Malcolm, with many family letters from that period.

Available from Amazon

The Stars and the Stillness: A Portrait of George MacDonald, by Kathy Triggs, Lutterworth Press, 1986

Available from third parties through Amazon

George MacDonald: A Short Life, by Elizabeth Saintsbury, Canongate Pub Ltd, 1989

Available from AbeBooks