Tom Worboise, the prodigal apprentice, is indecisive, frivolous, and ambitious for the "good life." He works as clerk to Mr. Boxall, a wealthy businessman in London's Guild Court, On his own time, Tom alternates between two girls who love him, Lucy Burton and Mary Boxall. Tom's father, a shrewd lawyer, amens a will for the Boxall family, who soon afterward are all lost in a shipwreck. Tom's father had been named beneficiary in such an eventuality, and now ruthlessly goes after the money. Tom is influenced by his crafty father and enters a series of misadventures that involve gambling and theft. Finally he comes to himself and returns to London where he finds love and a more noble way of life.
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...
