This is helped significantly by the fact that the author addresses the reader directly at the start of the story, helping to ease the reader out of the real world and into the fantasy world he has created. At the same time, Irene becomes better acquainted with her grandmother, who ultimately enables her to save Curdie as well.Ĭonsidering that this book was published in 1872, I was surprised to find that it made for fairly quick reading.

After Curdie recues Irene and Lootie from goblins on that night, he goes onto uncover a plan that endangers the princess. The very next day, she convinces Lootie to keep her out much later than normal, and the two meet Curdie, the son of miners, who has the gift of driving away goblins by reciting verse. After this meeting, things change for Irene. The woman identifies herself as the princess's great-great-grandmother for whom Irene was named. One rainy day, Irene goes exploring in the halls of the castle, and she comes upon a beautiful woman with a spinning wheel sitting in a tower room. (Her father, the king, is often away, and her mother is dead.) Irene is very sheltered, because, although she is not aware of them, subterranean goblins lurk in the mountains outside of her home, lying in wait to exact revenge on the humans who have banished them. This unabridged edition includes original 1920 illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith.Princess Irene is eight years old, and lives in a large castle-like house in the countryside with only her nurse, Lootie, for company. To save her kingdom she must rely on the help of the mysterious silver-haired lady she meets in a castle tower, as well as the brave and clever Curdie, a miner-boy with a talent for rhyme and song. They are eager for vengeance on the world of men that cast them out long ago, and Irene gets caught up in their plans after a chance encounter one night. Grotesque but cunning, they are discontent and mischievous they delight in tormenting their neighbors above. Far below, in the dark and winding places underneath, lives a kingdom of goblins. The curious and restless young Princess Irene lives in a vast castle on the side of a mountain. Tolkien and Lewis both cite MacDonald’s book as a significant influence on their own later works. The Princess and the Goblin was one of the earliest books of the modern Western fantasy genre, a new blend of fairy tale, folklore, and magic. George MacDonald’s classic fantasy story is a simple one at its center: the enduring struggle between light and dark, the seen and the unseen.

The princess and the goblin novel