The Princess and Curdie is the sequel to George Mac Donald’s popular The Princess and the Goblin. After saving the Princess Irene in the first book, the young miner Curdie travels to the King’s castle for more adventures of faith and courage. Considered the grandfather of modern fantasy novels, Mac Donald published this novel in 1883. Our rejuvenated edition makes the story more readable by updating spelling, breaking up very long paragraphs, and replacing quaint but confusing punctuation with more conventional patterns. 

Of Mac Donald, C.S. Lewis writes, ‘What he does best is fantasy-fantasy that hovers between the allegorical and the mythopoeic. And this in my opinion he does better than any man. The great works are Phantastes, the Curdie books,  The Golden Key,  The Wise Woman and Lilith. They are supremely good. The meaning, the suggestion, the radiance, is incarnate in the whole story.’

Madeleine L’Engle writes, ‘I loved George Mac Donald, beginning with The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie. Like all great fantasists, he has taught me about life, life in eternity rather than chronology, life in that time in which we are real.’

Although this story was originally written for children, don’t assume that this is a children’s book! ‘I write, not for children, ‘ Mac Donald wrote, ‘but for the child-like, whether they be five, or fifty, or seventy-five.’