Preface

 "In good sooth, my masters, this is no door.
Yet is it a little window, that looketh upon a great world."

For offering this new edition of my father's Phantastes, my reasons
are three. The first is to rescue the work from an edition illustrated
without the author's sanction, and so unsuitably that all lovers of the
book must have experienced some real grief in turning its pages. With
the copyright I secured also the whole of that edition and turned it
into pulp.

My second reason is to pay a small tribute to my father by way of
personal gratitude for this, his first prose work, which was published
nearly fifty years ago. Though unknown to many lovers of his greater
writings, none of these has exceeded it in imaginative insight and power
of expression. To me it rings with the dominant chord of his life's
purpose and work.

My third reason is that wider knowledge and love of the book should
be made possible. To this end I have been most happy in the help of my
father's old friend, who has illustrated the book. I know of no other
living artist who is capable of portraying the spirit of Phantastes;
and every reader of this edition will, I believe, feel that the
s are a part of the romance, and will gain through them
some perception of the brotherhood between George MacDonald and Arthur
Hughes.