The Princess and the Goblin
1872
Beneath the mountains, something ancient and malevolent waits. Above them, young Princess Irene explores a castle far too small for her restless curiosity. What she finds there a great-great-grandmother spinning in a hidden chamber, goblins nursing their hatred in the dark will reshape everything she thought she knew about her world. When the goblins make their move, it is not knights or generals who answer the threat, but Irene herself and Curdie, a coal-miner's son who sees what no one else dares to believe. MacDonald writes with the fierce gentleness of a man who never underestimated what children could endure or understand. The princess and the goblin is a fairy tale that takes imagination seriously, where danger is real and courage is not the absence of fear but the decision to act anyway. Its influence echoes through every fantasy that followed, from Carroll to Lewis to modern fantasy. This is for anyone who believed, as a child, that the right story could save the world.
