George MacDonald 3 hr 56 min read

On his twenty-first birthday, Anodos steps out of his bedroom into Fairy Land, wandering a dreamlike country of shadow and enchantment in search of his own soul.

George MacDonald's 1858 'Phantastes' is a foundational work of modern fantasy, a profound influence on C. S. Lewis. Lyrical, mystical, unforgettable. Read it for the dreamlike faerie romance that helped invent the whole genre, a luminous spiritual journey through the country of the imagination.

In its time

Published in 1858, during the 1850s, fairy tale and moral fantasy for a mass reading public; the sensation novel stirs.

Reading it

3 hr 56 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).