The Wise Woman

The Wise Woman tells the double story of two spoiled girls and the parents who spoiled them. A mysterious and powerful wise woman steps in to help the girls escape their destinies, but with little success. The great beauty of this short novel is graceful portrayal of how parents can harm their children by raising them without care and how difficult it is for children (and wise women) to find restoration to their true selves.

Considered the grandfather of modern fantasy novels, George MacDonald published this story in 1875. Our rejuvenated edition makes the story more readable by updating spelling, breaking up very long paragraphs, and replacing quaint but confusing punctuation with more conventional patterns.

Of MacDonald, C.S. Lewis writes, "What he does best is fantasy-fantasy that hovers between the allegorical and the mythopoeic. And this in my opinion he does better than any man. The great works are Phantastes, the Curdie books, The Golden Key, The Wise Woman and Lilith. They are supremely good. The meaning, the suggestion, the radiance, is incarnate in the whole story."

Although this story was originally written for children, don't assume that this is a children's book! "I write, not for children," MacDonald wrote, "but for the child-like, whether they be five, or fifty, or seventy-five."