13. Yrndale

14. Down the Hill

15. Out of the Frying Pan

16. Waiting a Purpose

17. Major H. G. Marvel

18. The Major and Vavasor

19. A Walk Along the River

20. An Unpleasant Interview

21. Corney’s Holiday

22. A Distinguished Guest

23. Courtship in Earnest

24. Calamity

25. In London

26. A Talk with the Major

27. A Scuffle

28. Gartley and the Major

29. Further Down

30. Differences

31. Deep Calleth Unto Deep

32. Deliverance

33. On the Way Up

34. The Attic Room

35. Amy and Corney

36. Miss Vavasor

37. Mr. Christopher

38. An Arrangement

39. Things at Yrndale

40. The Return

41. A Sad Beginning

42. Mother and Son

43. Miss Dasomma and Amy

44. The Sick Room

45. Vengeance Is Mine

46. Father and Daughter-in-law

47. The Message

48. A Family

49. A Birthday Gift

“Papa seems so quietly happy.”

—Louisa MacDonald, May 4, 1872, from Deskford (near Cullen)

“Papa does enjoy this place so much.”

—Louisa MacDonald, May 6, 1872 from the Seafield Arms Hotel, Cullen

“Papa oh! so jolly & bright & happy…Papa was taken for Lord Seafield yesterday.”

—Louisa MacDonald, Sept. 2, 1873, from Cullen

“Papa is very poorly. He ought to go to Cullen for a week I think.”

—Louisa MacDonald, October 5, 1873, from London

FOREWORD

The Cullen Collection

of the Fiction of George MacDonald

The series name for these works of Scotsman George MacDonald (1824-1905) has its origins in the 1830s when the boy MacDonald formed what would be a lifelong affection for the northeast Scottish village of Cullen.

The ocean became young George’s delight. At the age of eleven, writing from Portsoy or Cullen, he announced to his father his intention to go to sea as a sailor—in his words, “as soon as possible.” The broad white beach of Cullen Bay, the Seatown, the grounds of Cullen House, the temple of Psyche (“Temple of the Winds”), Cullen Burn, the dwellings along Grant Street, Scarnose, and especially Findlater Castle, all seized the youth’s imagination with a love that never left him. MacDonald continued to visit Huntly and Cullen throughout his life, using his childhood love for his homeland as the backdrop for his richest novels, including what is arguably his greatest work of fiction, Malcolm, published in 1875.

We therefore honor MacDonald’s unique relationship to Cullen with these newly updated editions of his novels. In Cullen, in certain respects more than in any other place, one finds the transcendent spirit of George MacDonald’s life and the ongoing legacy of his work still magically alive after a century and a half. This release of The Cullen Collection of the Fiction of George MacDonald coincides with a memorial bench and plaque established on Cullen’s Castle Hill commemorating MacDonald’s visits to the region.

To those readers familiar with my previous editions of MacDonald’s novels, I should make clear that eighteen of the volumes in this new series (including this one) are updated and expanded titles from the Bethany House series of the 1980s. Limitations of length dictated much about how those previous volumes were produced. To interest a publisher in the project during those years when MacDonald was a virtual unknown in the publishing world, certain sacrifices had to be made. Cuts to length had to be more severe than I would have preferred. Practicality drove the effort. Imperfect as they were in some respects, I am enormously grateful for those editions. They helped inaugurate a worldwide renaissance of interest in MacDonald. They were wonderful door-openers for many thousands into MacDonald’s world.