One of the most successful and beloved of Victorian fairy tales, George Macdonald's The Princess and the Goblin tells the story of young Princess Irene and her friend Curdie, who must outwit the threatening goblins who live in caves beneath her mountain home. Macdonald's pioneering use of fanstasy as a literary medium had a great influence on Lewis Carroll, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Madeleine L'Engle, all great admirers of his work, which has remained popular to this day. I write, not for children, he wrote, but for the child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.
