Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood

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IndyPublish.com, 2007 - Fiction - 204 pages
"Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood," first published in 1871, is a realistic novel of a Scottish upbringing. Young Ranald has three brothers, and many friends in the neighborhood. Ranald and his brothers hear the tale of the Kelpie, a mystical, terrifying monster, from their maid Kirsty, a Highland lass full of character and wonderful verve. The Kelpie appears in the boys' lives as a woman who supplants Kirsty's place in their household -- a terrible, but very human monster. As Ranald grows, he triumphs over this adversity and many others. This story of spiritual and moral growth is as charming as any of the great fantasist George MacDonald's less realistic tales. A tale of a boy's passage from childhood to young man, MacDonald's writing is as lyrical today as the day it was written.

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About the author (2007)

George MacDonald was born on December 10, 1824 in Huntley, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He attended University in Aberdeen in 1840 and then went on to Highbury College in 1848 where he studied to be a Congregational Minister, receiving his M. A. After being a minister for several years, he became a lecturer in English literature at Kings College in London before becoming a full-time writer. He wrote fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. In 1955, he wrote his first important original work, a long religious poem entitled Within and Without. He is best known for his fantasy novels Phantastes, The Princess and the Goblin, At the Back of the North Wind, and Lilith and fairy tales including The Light Princess, The Golden Key, and The Wise Woman. In 1863, he published David Eiginbrod, the first of a dozen novels that were set in Scotland and based on the lives of rural Scots. He died on September 18. 1905.

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