Originally published in 1899 by Dodd, Mead, & Co., New York.
MacDonald's final “novella” of a scant 22,000 words was viewed as so insignificant at the time of its release that it never appeared in book form in the U.K and is omitted from many lists of MacDonald’s books. Though appearing in magazine form in Britain, its only book edition was published in the United States.
For those with eyes to see, however, it reads as an autobiographical retrospective of the beginning of MacDonald’s own writing life. Though revealing a poignant final glimpse of MacDonald's waning energy and craft, the significance of its portrait of a struggling youthful author is delightful. Shortly after its writing, what appeared to be a stroke silenced the pen of this remarkable literary genius and man of God.
(Source: The Cullen Collection)
No Scots dialogue
“Indeed, the moment he addressed her, she knew in her heart that she had been loving him for a long time. Such must often be the case between two whom God has made for each other. And although he were a bold man who said that marriages were made in heaven, he were a bolder who denied that love at first sight was never there decreed. For where God has fitted persons for each other, what can they do but fall mutually in love? Who will then dare to say he did not decree that result?”