The Princess and the Goblin

As editor of the magazine Good Words for the Young, MacDonald had a ready audience for "fairy tale" and "children's" stories, and produced some of his most famous titles during this period of his writing life. The third of his stories for the magazine, The Princess and the Goblin, published in 1872, is universally acclaimed as MacDonald's best pure fairy tale, and has been enchanting readers for well over a century. This story of princess Irene, her mysterious ageless namesake "grandmother," and miner's son Curdie surely provided inspiration for C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. G.K. Chesterton wrote of it in 1924,