While J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis are perhaps the two most well known fantasy writers of our time, with the possible exception of J. K. Rowling, there were many fantasy writers before them. These authors include George MacDonald, William Morris, Lord Dunsany, L. Frank Baum, and many more. The list of fantasy works written before Tolkien and Lewis could also include the numerous mythologies and legends from around the world.

Have you read any fantasy works written before The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia? And if so, would you recommend them or not?

George MacDonald wrote fantasy? I thought he was just a theologian. I'll have to look into that...

Yes, he wrote The Princess and the Goblin as well as many fairy tales.

I have read most of MacDonald's fantasy novels (The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, Lilith, and numerous shorter tales) and enjoyed them, though he sometimes veers into strange theologies.

Sticking with Christian fantasy written before Narnia and LOTR (both published in the 1950s), there were several books by GK Chesterton and John Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress. I also recently discovered Elizabeth Goudge and read her novel The Little White Horse, published in 1946. Any of these are worth a read, though written in a very different style than you would see today.

MacDonald's writing is good--in fact, it was inspiration for C.S. Lewis. Baum isn't bad, but not my favorite =)

eruheran

Didn't Baum write The Wizard of Oz? I've read that.

Yes, the Oz books are his most famous works.

Does he have other works? I liked his writing, sort of, but the setting of Oz just didn't work for me. . .especially after hearing it was all political about the Populists and the gold standard and stuff. =)

eruheran

In addition to the numerous Oz books, L. Frank Baum wrote short stories and some other novels including The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.

One of my favorite short stories ever is The Little Mermaid. That's pretty old.

Really Luke? * chuckles *

Isn't the original story a tragedy?

Yes. Not at all like the Disney version we all watched as kids.

Hans Christian Anderson, yeah, I read that one. And it is really good and only a half tragedy. She's noble instead of being a brat.

But she still DIES!

But that's not the absolute ending. She turns to sea foam but she now has a redeemable soul.

It is still a tragedy, Jazz! And the part about the sea foam was horrible! who wants to turn into sea foam when they die?

But she still has a mind and soul. It's not just BAM you're sea foam forever. She can go to heaven now! That's like saying The Last Battle is a tragedy.

*chuckles* I think there is a load of difference between the way LB handles that subject, and how LM handles it. But okay. You think it is a redeemable tragedy, I just think it is tragedy.

I love tragedies. The story was so well written I just about cried. Which is rare when I read novels, even more so when I read short stories.

But The Last Battle is a tragedy!

Shakespeare may have confused tragedy with sad endings, but we don't need to.

Phantastes is beautiful, as well as many of MacDonald's other short stories. Of course, they tend to resemble folk lore more than what we call fantasy now. Macdonald wrote using his contemporary conventions, now we use our own conventions, I suppose.

Dracula! I read Dracula... Utterly amazing too.

Many of the Greek and Norse myths are good.
But I love the sagas of the Norse the best. These are what inspired Tolkien; things like Beowulf, Finn and Hengest, or Singurd, and Gudrun.

I know that Tolkien was influenced by William Morris, Edward Wyke-Smith, and H. Rider Haggard.

I agree. The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson is a fabulous story! It's much more dramatic than Disney's and the more moral to it, in my humble opinion.

It's interesting that the majority of posts so far have been about "The Little Mermaid." That was quite unexpected.

Well look at who started it! Me.

Who am I? The resident Cynical Libertarian Humorist.

What do humorists do? Be unexpected!

It only makes sense.

I've read some George Macdonald: Princess and the Goblin (it was shortened, but still pretty long, with lots of beautiful artwork); I tried reading Lilith and Phantastes, but they were horrible! His writing was so stilted... Lewis surpassed him by far. And he had some wacky theological beliefs, to boot. I also read The Light Princess, which starts out very humorously, and kind of in the end turns into a typical fairy tale in the style of Lang. I still enjoyed it, though
I've read some of L. Frank Baum, but not only do I think The Wizard of Oz is a hidden attack on God (really! I do! Ask me about it), but the whole idea that it's in our world, and in our time (well, not quite our time) and somehow Dorothy ends up there in chance ways is off putting to me. I don't know. I guess I'm spoiled on Narnia
I've also read a lot of Hans Christian Anderson (a lot of his stories aren't exactly fairy tales, but moral stories, often set either in his time, or in Egypt, or the time of the Norsemen or something like that), and several of the colored fairy books compiled by Andrew Lang. After a while, they got very boring and repetitive. To tell the truth, I don't read a lot of fairy tales anymore. Basically, Lewis and Tolkien are fine for me. In the past year I've read a few contemporary fantasies, but that's not the subject we're on.

Okay, I'm asking: How is The Wizard of Oz a hidden attack on God?

I agree with Laura on that, Jonathan.

If you study why he wrote it, and his views, and such, it's not really political. It's very much about trying to find God, and finding that he's nothing but a helpless old fake, and finding your own light within.

I haven't read it, which is why I was curious.

Thanks for the link, Shawn.

That is an interesting article, though it's hard to tell from the article whether this interpretation is something L. Frank Baum intended or just something that is being exaggerated.

The strange theological beliefs of George MacDonald have been mentioned more than once. Does anyone want to give details as to what those theological beliefs are and how they affect his writing?

Sorry I didn't get back to you for so long
Well, you know the wizard that everyone is so afraid of? He can make himself into just about anything, and Dorothy and Co. goes to get his help, and anyways, they find out that it's just a tiny little man who does a lot of illusions to scare people, and he's not really a wizard or anything. Now, my dad thinks this, and it makes total sense to me, that the wizard is supposed to be like God. Everyone is afraid of him, and he can make them think he's really big and scary, when in reality he's actually just a little nobody (which is to say, probably doesn't even exist). Certainly, Baum's books aren't Christian, and I actually need to look him up on Wikipedia. Hope that helped

That's all right.


I can see how it could be interpreted that way.

Ari, I'm beginning to recognized blacked-out spoiler tags. The short ones are ALWAYS "dies".

*chuckles* Yes.

The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison is a fantasy novel set on another planet, supposedly Mercury, but this aspect is largely ignored, since it focuses on a war between two fantasy kingdoms. Despite being somewhat entertaining, it unfortunately has a dark worldview, and for that reason is probably best passed over by most.