From the pulpit to a writing life
MacDonald was born in Huntly in 1824 and studied at King’s College, Aberdeen. In 1850 he became minister of a Congregational church in Arundel. His teaching about God’s love displeased some members of the congregation, and a reduction in his salary helped force his resignation in 1853. He continued preaching as a layman while finding work through teaching, lectures and writing.
He and his wife Louisa raised a large family, and the need to support it accompanied recurring health problems. His realistic novels found readers alongside the fairy tales, poetry and sermons. Louisa wrote plays that the family performed, sometimes raising funds for people in need. The imagined worlds for which he is now especially remembered belonged to this much wider literary and domestic life.
Two journeys beyond familiar rooms
At the Back of the North Wind begins with Diamond, the son of a coachman. His encounters with North Wind take him beyond the family’s London surroundings, while his care for a baby and his help with a horse keep practical kindness close to the story. Maria L. Kirk illustrates the copy held here. Lilith gives an adult traveller a more unsettling passage out of an inherited house. Mr Vane follows a strange librarian and raven into a world where he must reconsider who he is. Lumitheca holds the 1896 second edition of that novel.
