Showing results by author "George MacDonald" in All Categories

George MacDonald, described by W.H. Auden as "one of the most remarkable writers of the 19th century", was valued in his own time as an original thinker and spiritual guide. Of all his writing, it is the fairy tales that have retained their fascination, and this collection includes all 11 stories. The fairy tales feature the stock characters of traditional tales—fairies both good and bad, and children undertaking precarious journeys. Often adopting paradox and nonsense as Lewis Carroll did, the stories invite adults to deploy the same open-mindedness as children.

Private McAuslan, J.—the Dirtiest Soldier in the World (alias the Tartan Caliban)—demonstrates his unfitness for military service in this first volume of stories of life in a Scottish regiment. Unkempt, ungainly and unwashed, civilian listeners may regard him with shocked disbelief. But generations of ex-servicemen have hailed him with delight as a familiar friend—because every old soldier can remember a McAuslan!

In the spirit of Flashman, and in the inimitable George MacDonald Fraser style, comes a rousing story of prize fighting in the 19th century. Reissued in a stunning new package, Black Ajax will attract a new generation of fans. When Captain Buck Flashman sees the black boxer catch a fly in midflight, he realizes that he is in the presence of speed such as the prize ring has never seen.

"The Princess and the Goblin" is an enthralling fantasy tale written by George MacDonald. Her nurse Lootie raises the princess Irene in a house on a mountain, it is here that she meets her mysterious great-great-grandmother, and her friend, the minor boy Curdie. Things are peaceful for Irene until the hideous race of goblins that live beneath the mountain start planning something big.

Spoiled, arrogant, filthy rich, and breathtakingly beautiful, the young Lady Godiva Dacre is exiled from the court of Good Queen Bess (who can't abide red-haired competition) to her lonely estate in distant Cumberland, where she looks forward to bullying the peasantry and getting her own imperious way.

In China, in 1860, a lot of people mistakenly put their trust in Flashman: the English vicar’s daughter with her cargo of opium; Lord Elgin in search of an intelligence chief; the Emperor’s ravishing concubine, seeking a champion in her struggles for power; and Szu-Zhan, the female bandit colossus, as practised in the arts of love as in the arts of war. They were not to know that behind his Victoria Cross, Harry Flashman was a base coward and a charlatan. They took him at face value. And he took them, for all he could, while China seethed through the bloodiest civil war in history.

MacDonald stressed the necessity of salvation and the importance of combining Christian faith with obedience to Jesus' teachings. He also believed that God's universal grace would eventually save everyone. Though written in the mid-19th century, these sermons, including "Mirrors of Christ", "Glorified through Trouble", "Salvation from Sin", and "The Giver of Rest", continue to provide contemporary followers with the spiritual guidance they seek.

It is the story of Mr. Vane, an orphan and heir to a large house - a house in which he has a vision that leads him through a large old mirror into another world. In chronicling the five trips Mr. Vane makes to this other world, MacDonald hauntingly explores the ultimate mystery of evil.

The Pyrates is all the swashbucklers that ever were, rolled into one great technicoloured pantomime - tall ships and desert islands, impossibly gallant adventurers and glamorous heroines, buried treasure and black spots, devilish dons and ghastly dungeons, plots, duels, escapes, savage rituals, tender romance and steaming passion, all to the accompaniment of ringing steel, thunderous broadsides, sweeping film music, and the sound of cursing extras falling in the water and exchanging period dialogue.

In volume II of The Flashman Papers, Flashman tangles with femme fatale Lola Montez and the dastardly Otto Von Bismarck in a battle of wits which will decide the destiny of a continent.

In this volume of The Flashman Papers, Flashman, the arch-cad and toady, matches his wits, his talents for deceit and malice, and above all his speed in evasion against the most brilliant European statesman and against the most beautiful and unscrupulous adventuress of the era.

The first unpublished novel from the historical fiction legend George Macdonald Fraser, featuring the unscrupulous and brilliantly entertaining pirate Calico Jack Rackham. New Providence, 1720s. When infamous pirate Captain 'Calico' Jack Rackham returns from the high seas to ask Governor Woodes Rogers for a royal pardon, the Governor sees his chance to put his own devious plans into action.

In Volume II of the Flashman Papers, Flashman tangles with femme fatale Lola Montez and the dastardly Otto Von Bismarck in a battle of wits which will decide the destiny of a continent. In this volume of The Flashman Papers, Flashman, the arch-cad and toady, matches his wits, his talents for deceit and malice, and above all his speed in evasion against the most brilliant European statesman and against the most beauiful and unscrupulous adventuress of the era.

Scottish author George MacDonald Fraser took the loutish bully from Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown's Schooldays and gave him a new lease of life. Over the course of 12 novels, caddish anti-hero Flashman swashbuckled his way around the British Empire, playing a key role in some of the 19th century’s most significant events.

Written by George MacDonald in 1858, Phantastes is acknowledged as the first modern fantasy novel for adults, inspiring Lewis Carroll, C.S.Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and David Lindsay amongst others.

A game of cards leads Flashman from the jungle death-house of Dahomey to the slave state of Mississippi as he dabbles in the slave trade in Volume III of the Flashman Papers. When Flashman was inveigled into a game of pontoon with Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck, he was making an unconscious choice about his own future – would it lie in the House of Commons or the West African slave trade? Was there, for that matter, very much difference?

Join the children Tangle and Mossy as they embark on a journey of faith, spiritual maturity and sanctification. Richly imaginative and sparkling with mythic qualities, this story communicates the joy of entering into faith as a child, traveling through life with a loving companion, and longing for the heavenly country.

This is a beautiful, moving tale from the best-selling author of the Flashman Papers. To the young Lady Margaret Dacre, raised in the rich security of Queen Elizabeth's court, the Scottish border was a land of blood and brutal violence, where raid and murder were commonplace, and her broad inheritance lay at the mercy of the outlaw riders and feuding tribes of England's last frontier.

The Princess and the Goblin was published in 1872. One of the very first fantasy novels this magical classic had a profound influence on the work of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and is loved by fans of fantasy fiction to this day. Eight-year-old Princess Irene lives in a remote mountainous region with no one but her nursemaid for company. Then she meets a mysterious old woman and Curdie, a young miner.

Phantastes: A faerie romance for men and women is a fantasy novel by Scottish writer George MacDonald, first published in London in 1858. It was later reprinted in paperback by Ballantine Books as the 14th volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in April 1970.

The Cotswold Explorer brings you another collection of spooky tales ranging from haunted houses and bounding werewolves, to tongue-in-cheek tales of reincarnation.