George MacDonald – författare

På semester från sina studier i Oxford besöker den unge herr Vane sitt föräldrahem; när han slår sig ner i det väldiga biblioteket för att läsa får han syn på en otydlig skepnad, en gänglig gammal man, bland de talrika bokhyllorna. Han följer efter honom uppför trapporna tills de når husets vindsvåning. Här, där han aldrig förr satt sin fot, finner han en underlig antik spegel. När han placerar handen mot glaset ger det plötsligt vika. Jag stod i hjärtat av universums kyrkogård; dess omkrets var den gränslösa heden, dess väggar den grå himlaranden, låg och stjärnlös. Jag hade lämnat vår och sommar, höst och solsken bakom mig, och nått vintern som väntade. Jag hade gett mig av i min ungdoms vår; och nu hade jag redan nått hit! George MacDonalds (1824-1905) mörka saga Lilith (1895) är en berättelse om drömmen, döden och livet; den är en tidlös klassiker som har haft ett betydande inflytande på såväl C.S. Lewis som J.R.R. Tolkien.

George MacDonald occupied a major position in the intellectual life of his Victorian contemporaries. This volume brings together all eleven of his shorter fairy stories as well as his essay "The Fantastic Imagination". The subjects are those of traditional fantasy: good and wicked fairies, children embarking on elaborate quests, and journeys into unsettling dreamworlds. Within this familiar imaginative landscape, his children's stories were profoundly experimental, questioning the association of childhood with purity and innocence, and the need to separate fairy tale wonder from adult scepticism and disbelief.

Rediscover the Puffin Classics collection and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation - including this magical edition of The Princess and the Goblin.Princess Irene lives in a castle in a wild and lonely mountainous region. One day she discovers a steep and winding stairway leading to a bewildering labyrinth of unused passages with closed doors - and a further stairway. What lies at the top? Can the ring the princess is given protect her against the lurking menace of the goblins from under the mountain?

Despite the magnitude of the problem of child sexual abuse and the concomitant range of behavioural, emotional, and interpersonal problems in child victims, there is a dearth of services available to respond to this client population.  Interventions that do exist tend to be sparse and piecemeal in approach, with no systematic follow-up or evaluation. Often, services are available to specific target clients (usually victim and perpetrator seen separately), with little consideration directed to other family members or to the social environment in which the abusive behaviour has occurred. In rural areas these problems are compounded – hampered by travel distances, diverse population bases, and limited service resources.Coordinating Child Sexual Abuse Services in Rural Communities reports on a three-year project concentrating on the design and implementation of a coordinated program for the treatment of child sexual abuse in rural Manitoba. The project was unusual in that it followed a rigorous research design which incorporated a matched comparison of test and control communities and assessed the impact of a ‘coordinated service model’ at family, agency, and community levels. It was also one of the rare studies to date that offered detailed information on service delivery in rural communities and assessed the impact of a ‘coordinated service model’ at family, agency, and community levels. It was also one of the rare studies to date that offered detailed information on service delivery in rural communities, including rich case material to highlight salient practice themes at both case and community levels. The book is divided into three sections: design and implementation of coordinated community services, evaluation of coordinated services, and reflections on community experience.

If you don’t have the time to read all the novels of George MacDonald, the great Scottish storyteller who inspired C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, Mark Twain, W. H. Auden, and J. R. R. Tolkien, this anthology is a great place to start.These selections from MacDonald’s novels, fairy tales, and sermons reveal the profound and hopeful Christian vision that infuses his fantasy worlds and other fiction.Newcomers will find in these pages a rich, accessible sampling. George MacDonald enthusiasts will be pleased to find some of the writer’s most compelling stories and wisdom in one volume. Drawn from books including Sir Gibbie, The Princess and the Goblin, Lilith, and At the Back of the North Wind, the selections are followed by reflections from G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis and accompanied by classic illustrations of Maurice Sendak (print edition only).