Phantastes

Synopsis

Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women is a fantasy novel centering on the character Anodos a young man who is pulled into a dreamlike world and there hunts for his ideal of female beauty". Anodos lives through many adventures and temptations while in the other world, until he is finally ready to give up his ideals.
C.S. Lewis wrote, concerning his first reading of Phantastes at age sixteen, "That night my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptized; the rest of me not unnaturally, took longer. I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for by buying Phantastes."
George MacDonald was a 19th century Aberdeenshire Scot; a professor, pastor, preacher, poet and author. He is considered by many the "father of fantasy" and bore strong influence on W.H. Auden, G.K. Chesterton, Madeline L'Engle, C.S. Lewis, E. Nesbit, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain and Elizabeth Yates. While his literary impact was profound, moreso has his faith inspired these and countless others who have been stimulated by his character and theology as expressed simply and profoundly in stories and parables.