The Princess and the Goblin

No cover — George MacDonald: The Princess and the Goblin (EBook, 2004, NuVision Publications)

eBook

English language

Published Jan. 5, 2004 by NuVision Publications.

ISBN:: 978-1-59547-392-9
OCLC Number:: 56569054

(1 review)

This novel was one of J.R.R. Tolkien's childhood favorites. Though George MacDonald's stories are based on some of the themes and characteristic attributes of classical European fairy tales, he has replaced meaningless and ghoulish plots with a layer of Christian reference. Here, the eight-year-old Princess Irene lives in a mountaintop castle above a colony of underground goblins who are planning to overthrow the King, her father. She has discovered that at the top of the palace stairs lives a mysterious woman who is her great great grandmother. No one else knows about her, and nobody believes the Princess. She meets thirteen-year-old Curdie, a miner's son, who has come upon the goblins and knows of their evil plot. Images of burning roses and mysterious fires are the hints of danger, but Curdie is determined to protect the people he loves. He slowly becomes aware that sometimes "you must believe without seeing." …

This novel was one of J.R.R. Tolkien's childhood favorites. Though George MacDonald's stories are based on some of the themes and characteristic attributes of classical European fairy tales, he has replaced meaningless and ghoulish plots with a layer of Christian reference. Here, the eight-year-old Princess Irene lives in a mountaintop castle above a colony of underground goblins who are planning to overthrow the King, her father. She has discovered that at the top of the palace stairs lives a mysterious woman who is her great great grandmother. No one else knows about her, and nobody believes the Princess. She meets thirteen-year-old Curdie, a miner's son, who has come upon the goblins and knows of their evil plot. Images of burning roses and mysterious fires are the hints of danger, but Curdie is determined to protect the people he loves. He slowly becomes aware that sometimes "you must believe without seeing." When the strength of an invisible thread--strong like prayer--leads the Princess to her grandmother's arms, Curdie's wonder is awakened. In other fairy tales any worldly wisdom is associated with the elders, but in this story the innocent children are wise. Please Note: This book has been reformatted to be easy to read in true text, not scanned images that can sometimes be difficult to decipher. The Microsoft eBook has a contents page linked to the chapter headings for easy navigation. The Adobe eBook has bookmarks at chapter headings and is printable up to two full copies per year. Both versions are text searchable.

45 editions

Literally Graphic reviewed The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

Review of 'The Princess and the Goblin' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A rollicking children's fantasy novel written in 1872, The Princess & The Goblin by George MacDonald is fantastic! I do remember that my parents read me this book when I was a child, but since I could not remember anything else about the story – and was recently amazed by Phantastes – I decided to make this my favorite author read for August. Since it is also extremely short, I finished listening to it over the course of one long walk. The version I listened to I downloaded off of Overdrive, and was excellent, but both free versions on librivox sound very well done as well.

If you couldn't tell already, I really loved this book. Which was an interesting contrast to my recent experience listening to Around The World in 80 days, that while three-star, left a lot to be desired from an adult reader's perspective. Beyond pure personal …

A rollicking children's fantasy novel written in 1872, The Princess & The Goblin by George MacDonald is fantastic! I do remember that my parents read me this book when I was a child, but since I could not remember anything else about the story – and was recently amazed by Phantastes – I decided to make this my favorite author read for August. Since it is also extremely short, I finished listening to it over the course of one long walk. The version I listened to I downloaded off of Overdrive, and was excellent, but both free versions on librivox sound very well done as well.

If you couldn't tell already, I really loved this book. Which was an interesting contrast to my recent experience listening to Around The World in 80 days, that while three-star, left a lot to be desired from an adult reader's perspective. Beyond pure personal preference, I think this difference in satisfaction comes down to two key differences. The first one is simple, the glorification of colonialism, which is hard for most adults these days to swallow. The second, somewhat more complicated reason, is that one is a book from the perspective of an adult made appropriate for all ages, and the other is a story for children from the perspective of a child. So while the goblin king and queen's plans weren't quite as complicated as Game of Thrones, who doesn't like to be reminded of how much more exciting and creative the life of a child is?

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the feel of Spiderwick, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, or The House of Arden.