The Works’ new illustrated edition, unabridged, and with an extensive introduction.
Lilith was originally published in 1895 by Chatto & Windus, London.
Eight distinct manuscript versions of Lilith exist, chronicling the book’s development under MacDonald’s pen until its release in 1895. Some view Lilith as the other-worldly climax of MacDonald's literary career. As in Phantastes, with which Lilith is usually linked, the narrator finds himself embarking on a quest. But unlike the earlier journey into the land of faerie, that of Lilith is an inward journey that leads to the world of death, exploring what new self-awarenesses, even repentance, may be possible in that realm.
(Source: The Cullen Collection)
“But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool of you that you will know yourself for one, and so begin to be wise!”
Recommended Editions and Adaptions
WRITTEN WORKS
From The Works Online Bookstore
An extraordinary new unabridged edition, with illustrations by fantasy artist Gabrielle Ragusi, foreword by GM Society president Malcolm Guite, and an extensive introduction by MacDonald scholar Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson.
From Johannesen Printing & Publishing
NB: Johannesen Printing & Publishing has published three volumes: Lilith First & Final, and two volumes entitled Lilith: A Variorum Edition. The first volume includes both the brief, first draft of Lilith and the final published version, while the other two volumes contain four intervening drafts.
The Cullen Collection edition, with introduction by Michael Phillips
OTHER MEDIA
“Lilith” Audiobook, read by Pete Williams
Lilith - A Tribute to George MacDonald's Classic Novel (songs from Gabriel Godwin’s digital album)
The Prayer Flower from Lilith: Painting by Leighton Isaacs
Articles about Lilith
VARIOUS SOURCES
The Salvation of Lilith, by Al Kimel
Lilith and The Queen’s Gambit: Two Ingenue Who Learn Love Through Sacrifice, by Seth Myers
“Death and Redemption in Lilith,” by Dean Hardy
The Spiritual Structure of Lilith: A paraphrase of the first draft by MacDonald's son Greville, with notes by John Docherty
“Beautiful Terrors: George MacDonald and Lilith”, by David Melville
“George MacDonald’s Lilith as Mystical Document”, by Charles Beaucham
“George MacDonald’s Lilith and the Conventions of Ascent”, by Michael Mendelson
“Cosmic and Psychological Redemption in George MacDonald’s Lilith”, by Bonnie Gaarden
“Inheriting the Library: The Archon and the Archive in George MacDonald’s Lilith”, by Lauran Ray Fuller
“Lilith-George MacDonald”, by Ron Block
“Music in Phantastes and Lilith by George MacDonald: The Phenomenon of Intermediality”, by A. I. Samsonova
“‘Felicitous Space’ in the Fantasies of George MacDonald and Mervyn Peake”, by Anita Moss
“'La Belle Dame' – Lilith and the Romantic Vampire Tradition”, by David Melville Wingrove
Article within Rethinking George MacDonald: Contexts and Contemporaries, edited by Christopher MacLachlan, John Patrick Pazdziora and Ginger Stelle
NORTH WIND ARCHIVE
The home page of the North Wind Archive can be accessed here.
“‘Whence Came the Fantasia’: The Good Dream in Lilith”, by Rolland Hein
“’Yet more spacious Space’: Higher-Dimensional Imagination from Flatland to Lilith”, by Jeffrey Bilbro
“A Check List of Biblical Allusions in Lilith”, by Tim Martin
“Allegory and Aestheticism in the Fantasies of George MacDonald”, by Yuri Cowan
“Beasts and Monsters in MacDonald’s Fairy Stories”, by Dieter Petzold
“Below in the Depths: MacDonald’s Symbolic Landscape”, by Adelheid Kegler
“Crystal City: Sodom-Bulika-Jerusalem”, by Karl Kegler
“George MacDonald’s Lilith: Whores in Babyland”, by Jennifer Sattaur
“George MacDonald and the Anthropology of Love”, by Robin Phillips
“God’s Library: A Comparative Analysis of MacDonald’s Lilith Manuscripts”, by Janet Carr Zellmann
“Lilith and Mysticism”, by Charles Beaucham
“Mapping the Text of ‘Lilith’: MacDonald’s Labyrinths and Gardens”, by Kaitlyn Dryer
“Of ‘Frustrate Desire’: Feminist Self-Postponement in Lilith”, by John Pennington
“Riddled with Evil: Fantasy as Theodicy in George MacDonald’s Phantastes and Lilith”, by Courtney Salvey
“Rooted in all its Story, More is Meant than Meets the Ear: A Study of the Relational and Revelational Nature of George MacDonald’s Mythopoeic Art”, by Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson
“Some Ironies in the Last Chapters of Lilith”, by John Docherty
“The Ignorant/Stupid Narrator in Lilith”, by Richard Reis
“The Lilith Manuscripts”, by Rolland Hein
“The Sleep of the Soul: The Blending of Traditional and Swedenborgian Structures of Thought in Lilith”, by Adelheid Kegler
“The Worm as Metaphor in Lilith”, by Fernando Soto
“Thoreau’s Economy and George MacDonald’s Lilith”, by John Pennington
“Connecting Dimensions: Direction, Location, and Form in the Fantasies of George MacDonald", by Daniel Creed
“Mr. Vane and Lilith: Two Roads to Repentance?”, by Jonathan B. Himes
REVIEWS
“Video Blog Discussion of Lilith”, by Charles Q. Banks
“Book Review: ‘Lilith’ by George MacDonald”, by David
“Book Review: Lilith in a New Light: Essays on the George MacDonald Fantasy Novel”, edited by Lucas H. Harriman, reviewed by William Gray
“Lilith Book Review Summary and Study Guide”, by Michael JR Jose
SUMMARIES AND STUDY GUIDES
“George MacDonald, Lilith”, by Brandon
“Lilith Summary & Study Guide”, Bookrags
“Lilith Study Guide”, by Dale Nelson
WINGFOLD
Wingfold is a quarterly magazine that restores material by and about George MacDonald, in print since 1993. To subscribe, click here. To request any of the following articles that appear in back issues of Wingfold, contact Barbara Amell at b_amell@q.com.
Fall 2002: Full issue devoted to Lilith:
Reviews by H.G. Wells
“Lilith”, by George Saintsbury
“A Little Glory”, by Katharine Pearson Woods
Introduction to Lilith, by Greville MacDonald
Comments on original Lilith manuscript, by Greville MacDonald,
“On Lilith”, by Barbara Amell
Winter 2009
“Lilith ad the Lecturer”, by Barbara Amell
Winter 2011
“’Collision of Conscience’ Shakespearean Influence in Lilith”, by Barbara Amell
Spring 2011
“Intensity: Dante’s Impact Upon The Princess and Curdie and Lilith”, by Barbara Amell
Spring 2013
“’Remarkably True’: George MacDonald on the Art of Fantasy”, by Barbara Amell
Spring 2014
“’Perfect order’: Evolving Opinions of George MacDonald’s Lilith”, by Barbara Amell
Winter 2015
“600 Years Later: George MacDonald on Purgatory”, by Barbara Amell
Spring 2015
“’Regions of Life’: George MacDonald on Fantasy”, by Barbara Amell