The Princess and the Goblin
1872
The Princess and the Goblin
1872
Far beneath the mountain where Princess Irene's palace stands, the goblins mine their dark tunnels and plot against the world above. When young Irene stumbles through forgotten passages and discovers her great-great-grandmother, a mysterious old lady who spins magic from thin air, she learns that her royal blood carries more than just a crown. She must find courage not in armies, but in faith and imagination. Alongside Curdie, a coal-miner's son who can hear the earth itself, she descends into the goblins' realm to save what she loves. MacDonald wrote this tale in 1872, but its depths feel timeless: beneath the fairy-story adventure lies a meditation on invisible protections, the courage required to face what lurks below, and the way true royalty reveals itself not in privilege but in heart. It influenced generations of fantasy writers, including C.S. Lewis, who credited MacDonald with teaching him to write. This is the rare children's book that grows with you, offering simple adventure on first reading and strange, sacred depths on every return.
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“Seeing is not believing - it is only seeing.””
— George MacDonald
“We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.'What is that, grandmother?'To understand other people.'Yes, grandmother. I must be fair - for if I'm not fair to other people, I'm not worth being understood myself. I see.””
— George MacDonald
“People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it.””
— George MacDonald
“Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: 'I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.””
— George MacDonald
“It is when people do wrong things wilfully that they are the more likely to do them again.””
— George MacDonald
“...it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs.””
— George MacDonald
“Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a star dissolved in the blue.””
— George MacDonald
“It was foolish indeed - thus to run farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been seeking a fit spot for the goblin creature to eat her in at his leisure; but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of.””
— George MacDonald
“That's all nonsense," said Curdie. "I don't know what you mean." "Then if you don't know what I mean, what right have you to call it nonsense?””
— George MacDonald
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MacDonald, George. The Princess and the Goblin. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-princess-and-the-goblin-8d9efd91-e37c-445d-a2f6-726c06a65d11.MacDonald, G. (1872). The Princess and the Goblin. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-princess-and-the-goblin-8d9efd91-e37c-445d-a2f6-726c06a65d11MacDonald, George. The Princess and the Goblin. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-princess-and-the-goblin-8d9efd91-e37c-445d-a2f6-726c06a65d11.
