ABOUT THE ELECT LADY, FROM GEORGE MACDONALD, A WRITER’S LIFE

“George MacDonald’s The Elect Lady, following just a year after his publication of Home Again, represents the second in a duo of novels which MacDonald called his “short stories.” Both books signaled a dramatic  shrinking of  fictional length in the Scotsman’s output. [1]

“Brief and simple as it might seem, The Elect Lady stands out as vividly portraying that young people can know and obey God no less because they are young. The memorable pact between Dawtie, Sandy, and Andrew to be good children, and to ask what God wanted them to do, gives two remarkable images (Sandy drops out of the story as it progresses) that stand among MacDonald’s formidable fictional creations. It may be that Andrew and Dawtie strike some readers as just a little too perfect. But then why not—Dawtie is cut from the same mold as Gibbie, and we do not complain of his goodness. And Andrew could be a reincarnation of Donal Grant…”

Michael Phillips’ newly updated editions of all of MacDonald’s novels—including expanded and lengthier new editions of those he edited back in the 1980s—comprise THE CULLEN COLLECTION, in honor of the village in Scotland where MacDonald wrote and set his classic, Malcolm. The collection also includes a monumental new bibliographic biography, George MacDonald, A Writer’s Life. Seventeen books are available as of this writing (see sidebar at right).