Lilith Summary
George MacDonald

Lilith Summary

Lilith by George MacDonald takes the educated narrator, Mr. Vane, on several trips into a parallel world that co-exists with one in time and place, meeting people, observing strange phenomena, and learning from Adam, the first-created human, that God desires all to be saved through death.

Mr. Vane, recently graduated from Oxford, specializing in the natural sciences and given to questions of metaphysics, discovers that his library is haunted by a centuries-old librarian. Vane follows this wispy figure through a mirror for a brief visit to a "region of the seven dimensions." Raven in bird form guides Vane and confounds him with riddles about being and understanding. During a second visit, Raven fails to show Vane how universes coexist in time and space and to get him to lie down among those sleeping in death awaiting resurrection day. Vane rebels, flees, and finds himself back in his own world.