xt7qjq0stw34_2542 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dipstest/xt7qjq0stw34/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dipstest/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474.dao.xml unknown archival material 1997ms474 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. W. Hugh Peal manuscript collection George MacDonald letter to Reverend C. F. Deems text 43.94 Cubic Feet 86 boxes, 4 oversize boxes, 22 items Poor-Good Peal accession no. 11453. George MacDonald letter to Reverend C. F. Deems 2017 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dipstest/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474/Box_24/Folder_90/Multipage8618.pdf 1876 April 26 1876 1876 April 26 
  Scope and Contents
  
Peal accession no. 11105a.
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Biography

GEORGE MACDONALD AND HIS
WIFE. By GREVILLE MACDONALD.
New York: Lincoln MacVeagh, the Dial
Press. 1924. $6.

0 MANY people of the present gen-

eration George MacDonald is known
almost entirely as the author of a few fairy
tales. How partial are these acquaintances
is shown by a glance at the bibliography of
his published works. During his creative
period there flowed from his pen over
a score of Victorian-style “three-decker”
novels, as well as some thirty volumes of
poetry, tales, fairy stories, sermons, criti-
cisms and translations. The extent and va-
riety of his writings is a trustworthy index
not only to his industry as a man of letters,

but also to the rich comprehensiveness of
his social, religious and family interests.

He was born in Aberdeenshire in 1824.
The trend of his mental and spiritual
growth was determined to a generous extent
by the atmosphere of religious earnestness
which was unchallenged in his own home
and in his native village. After leaving
Aberdeen University be fitted himself for
the ministry at Highbury College, London,
and was soon after appointed to the pastor-
ate of the Trinity Congregational Church
of Arundel. At this point his divergence
from the conventional religious thinking
of his contemporaries became more and
more evident. His broad humanistic inter-
pretation of spiritual dogma received but
little sympathy from his church. His par-
ishioners protested against his kindly hope
that the heathen would be vouchsafed some
form of after-life and he was also accused
of umrholesome interest in Teutonic the—
ologies. The situation grew unbearable for
both sides and so, in 1353, he resigned and
moved to Manchester, where he did a cer-
tain amount of courageous pioneer preach—
ing as a strict independent.

In spite of wretched health and constant
poverty, he had been unceasingly interested
in literature. The appearance, a couple of
years after his departure from Arundel, of
his first volume, a longr dramatic poem en-
titled “Within and Without,” marked the
beginning of richer and more satisfying
days, and the popular approval of his novel,
“David Elginbrod,” crystallized his decision
to devote himself henceforth to his pen.
The new life widened his points of contact
immeasurably, and one notices that such
names as Lewis Carroll, John Ruskin and
Lady Byron occur more and more fre-
quently. In 1872 George MacDonald, his
wife, and son, GreviIle, toured America,
the father lecturing and preaching with a
success that is said to have been almost that
of Dickens. After their return, the entire
family went to Italy, where George Mac-
Donald spent the remainder of his produc-
tive life. He went back to England to die
in Surrey in the early fall of 1905.

In reading this biography one tends, at
times, to regret that so few pages have been
devoted to criticism of George MacDonald’s
achievements in the field of letters. The
three-volumed novels stick in one’s mind
and seem to challenge attention per :45.
And yet as one turns the last pages one
Comes to realize that George MacDonald’s
books cannot fairly be judged except in
reference to his whole life. For there has
been no man, perhaps, whose life was more
consistent, more truly knit together by R
lofty single purpose, more philosophically
and calmly ordered to a clearly perceived
end. There is no essential difference between
this man and his religious beliefs, or be—
tween himself and his social philosophy and
his novels and his poetry and even his fairy
tales. His very home, in Italy, with its
characteristic motto: “Corage: God mend
al,” was to him but another opportunity
for the expression of his faith in God and
the prodigal giving of human peace and
hospitality and kindliness. George Mac—
Donald made his contribution as a person—
ality and as a patriarch, as a genius in the
love of his fellows. His son understood
him thus and in that light has presented
him. To have considered his literature
merely as literature and his religion as
prayers and sermons only would have been
misinterpretation as unfair as it was unfor-
tunate.

(Continued on next page)