One minute book reviews: George MacDonald

Since in the podcast we are currently working our way through The Great Divorce, I thought it would be advisable to become more familiar with the character of George MacDonald. MacDonald was a minister and writer who greatly influenced C.S. Lewis. Lewis said that reading MacDonald’s Phantastes “baptized” his imagination.

I therefore read George MacDonald: An Anthology, which was assembled by C.S. Lewis. It contains 365 extracts from MacDonald’s work, such as the following:

#262 A Lonely Religion
There is one kind of religion in which the more devoted a man is, the fewer proselytes he makes: the worship of himself.

It was fascinating to see the themes and threads of thought I have seen in Lewis’ work in that of his master. It has certainly whet my appetite to read more of MacDonald’s work.