I’m a little torn writing about George MacDonald’s Adela Cathcart. By most measures it’s not a good novel, but it remains good, true, and beautiful nonetheless.

The story centres on Adela, a young girl who’s unexplained illness keeps her pale and withdrawn. The solution proposed is to gather a group of friends and family to write and share stories together every week. The majority of the book consists of these short stories.

While there are some gems in here—“The Light Princess” and “The Giant’s Heart,” for example—the quality of the stories is uneven. When MacDonald gets around to the framing narrative, Adela’s story, it feels like an odd intrusion into the short story collection.

That said, even the poorest George MacDonald book is worth reading because of the spiritual vision and anthropological insight of the author. Some examples are in order. Consider his words on the path to God:

And I said to myself: All the doors that lead inwards to the secret place of the Most High, are doors outwards – out of self – out of smallness – out of wrong. (loc. 13822)

Or, the connection he rightly draws between love of God and neighbour:

For to deny God in my own being is to cease to behold him in any. God and man can meet only by the man’s becoming that which God meant him to be. (loc. 15950)

I have yet to read a book by MacDonald that doesn’t contain material for spiritual reflection on almost every page. Adela Cathcart, though not one of his finest, is no exception.

MacDonald, George. Adela Cathcart. 1864. In The Complete Works of George MacDonald. E-book ed., Delphi Classics, 2015. EPUB.