During the mid-to late-Victorian period, George MacDonald was a public personality and a well-known literary figure. Leading critical journals printed long articles on his work; in 1869 the London Quarterly Review called him "one of the most popular authors of the day." Both his fantastic and his realistic stories for children were popular and influential; undoubtedly, however, it is his fantasies that had and continue to have the greatest influence. These works represent the beginning of a continuing tradition of spiritually driven children's books that stand as one half of the Victorian legacy to twentieth-century children's books. The other half has its source in the nonsense of Lewis Carroll's Alice books. MacDonald's fantasies for children, especially At the Back of the North Wind (1871) and The Princess and the Goblin (1872), have influenced such major writers of children's books as E. Nesbit, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Maurice Sendak, and Madeleine L'Engle.
