George MacDonald’s Victorian fairy tales transformed the genre of fantasy. His work also shaped the next generation of both children’s literature and modernism: C.S. Lewis regarded MacDonald as a major influence, and writers as diverse as G.K Chesterton and W.H. Auden acknowledged his significance. His best known story for children, The Princess and the Goblin, tells the story of a lonely child princess and her friend, a brave miner boy, in their battle with subterranean monsters.

Along with The Princess and the Goblin, this edition includes four other major fairy stories by MacDonald, as well as a selection of historical documents on the works’ composition and reception, Victorian fairy tales, and MacDonald’s literary criticism.