I met Jyrki Wahlstedt online when he ordered Uncle Dave Hiatt’s vintage editions of MacDonald’s Poetical Works. It was our first order from Helsinki—well, our first order from Finland, actually! He’d been hoping to attend the Phillips’ annual MacDonald get-together, set this year to take place in Cullen, and which, like the Olympics, has been postponed. This is excerpted from a write-up Jyrki prepared for that event.
—Jess Lederman

I’ve been reading George MacDonald for thirty-five years, and discovered him through C.S. Lewis. I read quite a lot of Lewis, and in The Great Divorce a character introduces himself with the words, ”My name is George, George MacDonald”. When the Michael Phillips’ 1980s editions of Malcolm and The Marquis of Lossie (The Fisherman’s Lady and The Marquis’ Secret) were published in Finnish, I realized something grand was on its way. After those two books were published, the publisher didn’t do them anymore. So I bought several novels edited by Michael Phillips, and eleven of them are on my shelf today. My favorite MacDonald novels are Sir Gibbie, Malcolm, The Marquis of Lossie, Warlock o’ Glenwarlock, and Phantastes.

I was asked for a favorite MacDonald quote, which is a task as impossible as trying to name my favorite aria in a cantata by Bach. But I borrow from a greater mind, as Lewis has this on the title page of The Great Divorce:

And one more!