The Complete Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics) (U)

George Macdonald Occupied A Major Position In The Intellectual Life Of His Victorian Contemporaries. The Complete Fairy Tales Brings Together All Eleven Of His Shorter Fairy Stories As Well As His Essay The Fantastic Imagination. The Subjects Are Those Of Traditional Fantasy: Fairies Good And Wicked, And Children Journeying Into Unsettling Dreamworlds Or Undertaking Life-risking Labors. But Though They Allude To Familiar Tales Such As Sleeping Beauty And Jack The Giant-killer, Macdonald's Stories Are Profoundly Experimental And Subversive. By Questioning The Concept That A Childhood Associated With Purity, Innocence, And Fairy-tale Wonder Ought To Be Segregated From Adult Skepticism And Disbelief, They Invite Adult Readers To Adopt The Same Elasticity And Open-mindedness That Come So Naturally To A Child. Enlisting Paradox, Play, And Nonsense Much Like Lewis Carroll's Alice Books, These Fictions Challenge Us To Question And Rethink Our Assumptions, And Offer An Elusive Yet Meaningful Alternative Order To The Dubious Certitudes Of Everyday Life.--jacket. Introduction/ U.c. Knoepflmacher -- Suggestions For Further Reading -- A Note On The Texts. The Fantastic Imagination: -- From Adela Cathcart: -- The Light Princess -- The Shadows -- The Giant's Heart. From Dealings With The Fairies: -- Cross Purposes -- The Golden Key. From At The Back Of The North Wind: -- Little Daylight -- Nanny's Dream -- Diamond's Dream. Later Tales: -- The Carasoyn -- The Wise Woman, Or The Lost Princess: A Double Story -- The History Of Photogen And Nycteris: A Day And Night Mahrchen. -- Explanatory Notes. George Macdonald ; Edited With An Introduction And Notes By U.c. Knoepflmacher. Includes Bibliographical References (p. Xxi-xxiii).