Phantastes - Wikipedia Phantastes From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search For the English essayist who wrote "The Fight" under this name, see William Hazlitt. Phantastes Author George MacDonald Country United Kingdom Language English Genre Fantasy Publisher Smith, Elder & Co. Publication date 1858 Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) Pages 323 Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women is a fantasy novel by Scottish writer George MacDonald, first published in London in 1858. It was later reprinted in paperback by Ballantine Books as the fourteenth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in April 1970. The story centres on the character Anodos ("pathless", or "ascent" in Greek) and takes its inspiration from German Romanticism, particularly Novalis. The story concerns a young man who is pulled into a dreamlike world and there hunts for his ideal of female beauty, embodied by the "Marble Lady". Anodos lives through many adventures and temptations while in the other world, until he is finally ready to give up his ideals. The edition published in 1905 was illustrated by Pre-Raphaelite painter Arthur Hughes. C.S. Lewis wrote, concerning his first reading of Phantastes at age sixteen, "That night my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptized; the rest of me[,] not unnaturally, took longer. I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for by buying Phantastes."[1] Plot[edit] The tale starts the day after Anodos' twenty-first birthday. He discovers an ancient fairy lady in the desk that he inherited as a birthright from his late father. After the fairy shows him Fairy Land in a vision, Anodos awakes the next day to find that his room is transforming into a forest, which he soon finds to be Fairy Land itself. Anodos then encounters a woman and her daughter in a cottage who warn him about the evil Ash Tree and the Alder Tree. He is told that the spirits of trees can leave their tree-hosts and wander throughout Fairy Land. He then explores the world of the fairies, which live in flowers. He then has a nightmarish encounter with the spirit of the Ash Tree, escapes, and finds rest in the warmth and love of the Beech Tree's spirit. After this, he finds a marble statue by Pygmalion. After he sings to it, the statue flees from him. He pursues the Marble Lady, but finds instead the Maid of the Alder Tree in disguise. The Maid deceives Anodos into letting his guard down so the Ash can attack. He narrowly escapes doom, being saved by the knight Sir Percivale. Anodos then meets a woman and her daughter who believe in fairy tales and the magic of Fairy Land, despite the disbelief of the woman's husband. Anodos also finds his shadow, an evil presence that follows and torments Anodos throughout the rest of the story. Anodos finds a large palace with many rooms, including a bedroom labelled as his own. In the palace library, he reads the story of Cosmo of Prague. Cosmo is a believer in fantasy who sacrifices his life to free the soul of his lover from an enchanted mirror. Anodos spends much time in the palace. He comes upon corridors filled with still statues. Anodos explores the halls and realises that the statues dance in the halls, and return quickly to their pedestals when he enters. He dreams of the marble lady, that she alone has an empty pedestal among the statues. He later finds this pedestal and sings to it. The marble lady materialises on the pedestal, but flees him. Anodos follows, going into a strange subterranean world with gnome-like Kobolds that mock him. Anodos escapes this place and finds himself on the beach of a stormy sea. A boat takes him to an "island" with a cottage with four doors which is inhabited by an ancient lady. Anodos enters each door in turn, each containing a different world. In the first he becomes a child again, remembering the death of his brother. In the next door he finds the marble lady and Sir Percivale in love. Here Anodos makes a last outburst of his love for the marble lady. The next door recounts the death of a loved one of Anodos, and he finds his family mausoleum. Finally, Anodos travels through the last door ("the door of the timeless") but is saved by the ancient lady without remembering anything. The ancient lady says that because she saved him, he must leave via an isthmus before the island sinks underwater. Next Anodos finds himself with two brothers who are forging armour and swords in order to fight three marauding giants living in a fortified stronghold. Anodos joins them in their fight, but they are ambushed by the giants unprepared. The brothers die in the fight, but Anodos lives, killing the giants and becoming a hero of the kingdom. He journeys to tell a woman whom one of the brothers loved of the brothers' death, but along the way is captured by a manifestation of his shadow and imprisoned. Anodos escapes by the song of a woman whom he had met before in Fairy Land, and he is not troubled by his shadow again. Anodos again encounters Sir Percivale, becoming his squire. They come upon a cult of worshipers doing an unknown evil to a select few. Anodos decides to try to stop the ritual. He destroys the worshippers' idol, exposing a dark opening out of which a monster rushes to attack him. He kills the monster but is killed in the struggle as well. He floats as a spirit for a time before awakening alive on Earth, retaining the memory of his experiences in Fairy Land. His family informs him that he had only been gone 21 days, despite his seemingly long journey. References[edit] Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. p. 187. ^ Lewis, C.S.. Surprised by Joy. The Inspirational Writings of C.S. Lewis. New York: Inspirational Press, 1994. 100. External links[edit] Wikisource has original text related to this article: Phantastes Phantastes Online Phantastes on Project Gutenberg Phantastes at Open Library Phantastes at Victorian Web Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women public domain audiobook at LibriVox v t e Works by George MacDonald Novels Phantastes David Elginbrod Alec Forbes of Howglen At the Back of the North Wind Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood The Princess and the Goblin The Lost Princess Sir Gibbie Mary Marston The Day Boy and the Night Girl The Princess and Curdie The Elect Lady Lilith Poetry Within and Without Fairy tales The Light Princess The Golden Key The Shadows Miscellaneous Evenor Nycteris Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phantastes&oldid=975491022" Categories: 1858 British novels Fantasy novels Novels by George MacDonald 1858 fantasy novels High fantasy novels Hidden categories: Books with missing cover Articles with Open Library links Articles with LibriVox links AC with 0 elements Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages Español Français Italiano Nederlands 日本語 Edit links This page was last edited on 28 August 2020, at 20:24 (UTC). 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