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At the Back of the North Wind, George MacDonald

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The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban Literary Studies

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Synonyms

Arthur Hughes; Bloomsbury; Cab; Child; Children’s Literature; Chiswick; Crossing Sweep; Death; Fantasy; Good Words for the Young; Horse; London; Nature; Scottish; Shipwreck; Temperance; Theodicy; Victorian

Definition

At the Back of the North Wind (1871) is George MacDonald’s only fantasy to be set in a real city (London). This morally didactic and yet complex work describes the adventures of the child Diamond, the son of a London coachman (later cab-driver) with the North Wind, who appears in the form of a beautiful lady. The novel has been both controversial and perennially popular.

Introduction

At the Back of the North Wind(1871) was George MacDonald’s (1824–1905) first novel-length children’s fantasy and his only fantasy that takes place in an actual city, London. Because of its blending of “Dickensian realism,” “dual-world fantasy,” “secondary world elements, a fairy tale [‘Little Daylight’], and dream work,” Roderick McGillis and John Pennington call it “a ready...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, Taipei Tech (NTUT), Taipei, Taiwan

    Sharin Schroeder

Authors
  1. Sharin Schroeder
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sharin Schroeder .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. London, UK

    Jeremy Tambling

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© 2020 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Schroeder, S. (2020). At the Back of the North Wind, George MacDonald. In: Tambling, J. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban Literary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62592-8_131-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62592-8_131-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-62592-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-62592-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities

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