Fairy Tales

George MacDonald has quickly become one of my favorite authors with this collection of work here. I had already read The Golden Key and enjoyed it, and wondered if his other works were similar. I was not disappointed.The only negative thing I can say about these stories is The Light Princess slows down a bit in the middle, and The Wise Woman starts off kinda slow. Everything else is top notch. Sure, someone could argue that The Shadows is as inconclusive as a story gets, but you know; that really didn't bother me. Anyway, MacDonald has an argument for the existence of inconclusive stories at the end of The Wise Woman for folks who want to make something of it.Now for a brief synopsis of each story that's contained. Most of these stories are taken from some of MacDonald's full novels:The Fantastic Imagination Essay is quite amusing, particularly when it discusses how you can ruin a fairy tale completely by simply inserting a gentleman with a cockney accent. I'd like to try that some time.The Light Princess isn't a story about a girl who gives out magical glowing light. It's about a princess who's so light in weight that she floats. This misinterpretation of the title actually did disappoint me, and that's probably the reason I thought the story was a little slow in the middle. But I enjoyed what was there, even if it wasn't the best demonstration of MacDonald's wild imagination.The Shadows is a downright creepy story for the first few pages, and then the narrator takes us into the church of the shadows, where the shadows simply tell random stories, most of them fairly light-hearted. A boy thinks that shadows are ghosts that got all black from getting stuck in a chimney. Pretty logical for a kid if you think about it.The Giant's Heart is the most violent story out of the bunch. Some evil giant keeps his heart in a bird's nest for some inexplicable reason. Maybe the story explains why, but the reason still remains inexplicable. Kids ride on top of spiders, and you pretty much get a good feel for George MacDonald's writing style here.Cross Purposes is probably my favorite story in this entire collection. It's so wild I forget the plot. Environments come and go through sudden changes, and vanishings, and what-not. It's like being in a dreamworld. I think it's about a princess and a goblin who bring two kids together, and the kids grow from hating each other to loving each other. This is not the same story as The Princess and The Goblin by George MacDonald, because I believe The Princess and The Goblin is a much longer story, although I haven't yet read it.A friend of mine told me he thought The Golden Key is insane, and it is. It's much like Cross Purposes, where the environment's changing all over the place. We see two kids who appear to be walking for some reason, and they talk to a parrot fish with an owl's head that cooks itself, and they grow really old, and they walk up a rainbow like it's a giant staircase. Yep.Little Daylight is a great concept. A girl is cursed by a witch causing her to always falls asleep before the sun comes out, and stay asleep until after moonrise so that she never sees the sun. Worse yet, when the moon's full she's in perfect health, but when it's a half moon or less she turns into an old wrinkled woman even though she's no more than seventeen.Nanny's Dream and Diamond's dream tell us about off the wall things like night skies inside of a house when it's daylight outside the house, and what it's like to live in the moon with an old man who demands that the moon's windows be washed. Okay, then.The Carosyn is much again a shining work of MacDonald's imagination like Cross Purposes and The Golden Key. This one has a little more of a plot though, and is easier to understand. A kid digs a canal through his house. Then a bunch of fairies sail down the canal and thank him. He sees them with a girl they kidnapped, and asks how she can be freed. They answer that when he brings them the drink called The Carosyn that the girl can be freed. Unfortunately no one knows what the heck The Carosyn is, not even the fairies, so naturally matters get complicated. Thankfully, visits to old blind women with hens and goblin blacksmiths seem to guide the way.The Wise Woman is without question the most pedagological of the stories if that's even a word. It emphasises the importance of being good and not throwing temper tantrums over and over again. Thankfully a bunch of weird stuff happens, and visions come and go to keep things interesting. The highlight of the story is the deeply disturbing vision of the second failure of the princess. Don't get into fights on boats is all I'm going to say.The History of Photogen and Nycteris is pretty neat. It's similar to Little Daylight. Photogen is raised to only see the sun and Nycteris is raised to only see the dark. Photogen seems like such a strong lad and Nycteris seems like such a sweet girl. In the midst of it all there's a lady with a wolf in her mind - literally, it seems. This story contains (like all of MacDonald's stories contain) a great descriptive analogy. Photogen in his fear of night calls the the moon the ghost of a dead sun.Although the brief introductions of certain sections of the works inform us that the last three stories are much darker than the rest, I wouldn't agree with that at all. All of the stories have bits of humor, and bits of disturbing darkness. That's what makes them so wonderful.I'm starting to think that although Andre Breton is credited with being the first actual surrealist, George MacDonald was in fact a surrealist perhaps half a century before. I've read many fairy tales by many authors but none of them have quite the randomness of MacDonald, except maybe Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which had to be at least somewhat inspired by MacDonald's work. This man is inspirational and I'd highly recommend his work to anybody, young or old.One final note:I have no idea what the cover art is supposed to represent. In fact, I'm not sure if it's from any of the stories in this collection. It appears to be some elderly fellow approaching a giant gargoyle. I don't recall a scene like this at all, although if I stretch my imagination a bit and pretend the old man is a kid I suppose it COULD be associatied with The Giant's Heart.

George Macdonald’s fairy tales will change your life. Period. I highly recommend them to anyone who pairs it with a little self reflection.HOWEVER, I have an issue with Penguin Book passing off their edition with such poor editing.For example, the page bleeds are visible in the bottom corner. Several words are misspelled “ticket” instead of “thicket” and the odd “to” instead of “of” this is not an issue of the original scots language.Next and weirdest of all: Carasoyn, a fairy tale in the book is written in the header throughout the book on random pages of other stories.The Title is rather misleading, The Complete Fairy Tales is not really accurate, it’s selected and some are actually from larger fantasy stories. The book is only 350pgs so a lot thinner than I expected to pay $17 to penguin for.Again, the edition is what I am dissatisfied with. I do fell transformed for the better in having read the stories therein: a favorite of mine is The History of Photogen and Nycteris

Read for the underlying meanings or read for pleasure -- either way, MacDonald will get through to your heart on one level or another. CS Lewis claimed MacDonald as his "master" (teacher) though the two never met. Because of this I started reading MacDonald's works and I find that the student has not excelled his teacher. MacDonalds works are different from Lewis' writings, and the fantastic works are wilder, I think. More for adults -- most of them. Lewis does rather misrepresent MacDonald's escatology in The Great Divorce (a must-read), where he writes in MacDonald as a character -- just so you're aware.This collection does NOT contain all of George MacDonald's fairy tales -- not even all the short ones. Still, it's a great collection and it's wonderful to have many of his more popular short fairy stories together in one place. The table of contents is good and the book is therefore easy to navigate -- an important consideration in a Kindle production. Thanks!

Perfect little book with a good collection of stories

I know you are reading this skeptical of most peoples reviews, and we all have different tastes, but these works are unbelievable! I truly have been enthralled by almost every story and at the worst greatly amused and taken away from the modern world. There is so much wisdom immersed within beautiful and enchanting tales. "The Wise Woman, or Lost Princess" is probably the best story I have ever read or heard.Buy one copy for yourself and 5 for your friends and family, and tell everyone you know to read George MacDonald. If they can't appreciate it, I think their souls are blind, and I would pray for them. These should be told to everyone, and read to every child!

George MacDonald creates a dark, heartbroken yet hopeful sense of the world and the character in his stories, which is inspiring to read, but even more so when you apply them broadly to the human condition, as he does indeed.If you like C.S. Lewis and Tolkien, this is who they were reading, and in some ways, he even puts them to shame.

Love McDonald

...and George MacDonald wrote a really long time ago, so his stories are quirky, nostalgic, and old-fashioned. They are blueprints for using one's imagination. These stories seemed to run together, but I eventually figured out where one ended and the next began. MacDonald made me love some characters and love to hate others. His fantasy worlds are fantastic!

Macdonald paved the way to 20th century fantasy and beyond, a must read to anyone who likes this genre, adults and children alike. Best collection of his shorter works.

As always, George MacDonald is great. Easy to read, kind characters and deep meanings. A single boring story because I didnt understand the references, that's all..

I am loving the magical journey with the author...

美麗本で、想定通りの内容であり、とても満足しています。有り難うございました。

Just love this book. The intro they’ve added is dull and long but it’s by some guy I’ve never heard of. The actual essay and stories by macdonald are very interesting and well written.