In new habiliments can quickly dight.'-from Purple Island by Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650), Scottish-English poet, elder son of Dr Giles Fletcher, and brother of Giles the younger. Imagine turning 21 and being dragged into a fantasy world full of perils and creatures that want to kill you. 'Phantastes from 'their fount all shapes deriving, Alas, how easily things go wrong / A sigh too much, a kiss too long / And there follows a mist and a weeping rain / And life is never the same again - George MacDonald, Phantastes. I know of no other living artist who is capable of portraying the spirit of Phantastes and every reader of this edition will, I believe, feel that the illustrations are a part of the romance, and will gain through them some perception of the brotherhood between George MacDonald and Arthur Hughes.-Greville MacDonald, September, 1905. To this end I have been most happy in the help of my father's old friend, who has illustrated the book. My third reason is that wider knowledge and love of the book should be made possible. To me it rings with the dominant chord of his life's purpose and work. Though unknown to many lovers of his greater writings, none of these has exceeded it in imaginative insight and power of expression. My second reason is to pay a small tribute to my father by way of personal gratitude for this, his first prose work, which was published nearly fifty years ago. With the copyright I secured also the whole of that edition and turned it into pulp. The first is to rescue the work from an edition illustrated without the author's sanction, and so unsuitably that all lovers of the book must have experienced some real grief in turning its pages. Yet is it a little window, that looketh upon a great world.'įor offering this new edition of my father's Phantastes, my reasons are three. 'In good sooth, my masters, this is no door.

Phantastes by George MacDonald