The classic novel of love and loyalty amid a vanishing way of life in the Scottish Highlands from the Victorian-era author of Robert Falconer . This Scottish masterpiece of 1886 contains wonderfully descriptive passages of the Scottish Highlands. The story centers around two families—the English Palmers and that of clan chief Alister Macruadh—and Mr. Palmer’s cruel removal of Clan Ruadh from its traditional lands. This portrait of the Highland Clearances poignantly captures how and why the clan way of life disappeared from the highlands in the 18th and 19th centuries. One of MacDonald’s signature tunes, God’s revelation in nature, is woven throughout the narrative. Along with Robert Falconer, What’s Mine’s Mine also offers insight into MacDonald’s controversial views on the afterlife. The pointed discussions between Calvinist Mrs. Macruadh and her sons Alister and Ian are memorable indeed. In spite of its highland flavor, this intensely Scottish tale did not employ the local dialect, which at the time was primarily Gaelic.
Author
George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister. He was educated at Aberdeen University and after a short and stormy career as a minister at Arundel, where his unorthodox views led to his dismissal, he turned to fiction as a means of earning a living. He wrote over 50 books. Known particularly for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels, MacDonald inspired many authors, such as G.K. Chesterton, W. H. Auden, J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Madeleine L'Engle. Lewis wrote that he regarded MacDonald as his "master": "Picking up a copy of Phantastes one day at a train-station bookstall, I began to read. A few hours later," said Lewis, "I knew that I had crossed a great frontier." G. K. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence." Elizabeth Yates wrote of Sir Gibbie, "It moved me the way books did when, as a child, the great gates of literature began to open and first encounters with noble thoughts and utterances were unspeakably thrilling." Even Mark Twain, who initially disliked MacDonald, became friends with him, and there is some evidence that Twain was influenced by MacDonald. For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George\_M...
