Episode 7: The Fiction of George MacDonald

Dr. Bethany Hebbard joins us from Austin to talk about the fiction of George MacDonald, the father of modern Christian fantasy. Bethany provides us with with an overview of MacDonald’s career, setting the biographical and historical context. We focus our discussion on MacDonald’s wonderful short story, “The Light Princess.” In the Top 10, Doug and Caren recommend some books for younger readers.

Show notes:

After finishing her Ph.D. at Baylor and teaching at a university in Alabama, Bethany now lives and works, alongside her husband, Steven, with the chronically homeless at the Community First! Village in Austin, Texas. I am amazed by the range of talents those two have: farming, construction, soap-making, using natural dyes…the list goes on.

You can hear more from Bethany at the Wisdom’s Workshop community on Facebook and read her exquisite meditations on her blog, Whole Cloth.

Much of MacDonald’s fiction can by found on Project Gutenberg, such as The Princess and Curdie and “The Light Princess.”

Undine by Freiherr de Friedrich Heinrich Karl La Motte-Fouqué

Professor Stephen Prickett served as Bethany’s dissertation director at Baylor. He is Regius Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Glasgow and honorary Professor of English at the University of Kent, Canterbury.  You can find his Victorian Fantasy and other works here.