Sir Gibbie

One of the true high marks in George MacDonald's literary career was reached with the publication in 1879 of Sir Gibbie, the captivating story of a mute orphan with an angel's heart set in the highlands of Scotland. Every MacDonald reader has his or her favorite, but it is safe to say that Sir Gibbie is near the top of the list for lovers of fairy tale, poetry, and novels alike. The character of "wee Sir Gibbie" mysteriously embodies hints from the land of "faerie," and his soul is poetry personified. MacDonald's storytelling genius here rises to heights as soaring as the mountain of Glashgar where Gibbie roams barefoot with the sheep, amid earthquake and flood. It was this book that captured authoress Elizabeth Yates' imagination and prompted her 1963 edition of Sir Gibbie, which in turn led to Michael Phillips's updated editions that inaugurated the MacDonald renaissance of the 1980s. If one could choose but one MacDonald novel to read, many would say it should be Sir Gibbie. Following Elizabeth Yates' example, Michael Phillips again translates the difficult Doric dialect of MacDonald's original into more accessible English.

This magnificent 1883 sequel to Sir Gibbie, and MacDonald's longest book, is a novel with everything-a Gothic castle with hidden rooms and passageways, good guys and bad guys, mysteries and inheritances. And poignant yet bittersweet love. Little does Gibbie's friend Donal realize what he is in for when he takes a tutoring job at mysterious Castle Graham! Woven throughout, of course, are many signature tunes of MacDonald's wisdom and spiritual insight, including one of C.S. Lewis's favorite MacDonald lines, that God is "easy to please but hard to satisfy." Along with Malcolm, Donal Grant presents one of MacDonald's most intricate and riveting plots, led by another of his stellar characters of virtue and truth. Its massive length, however (786 pages in the original), difficult Scots dialect, and numerous digressive tangents, illustrate better than any MacDonald title the need for condensed contemporary editions. Donal Grant is unique in the MacDonald corpus as being originally released in two different editions in Great Britain and America. This updated edition by Michael Phillips, which Phillips ranks as one of his favorite MacDonald titles, epitomizes the value and significance of The Cullen Collection in bringing the fiction of George MacDonald alive for new generations.