MacDonald, George: - George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a Scottish minister, poet, novelist, imaginative seer, and one of the most beloved Victorian authors throughout Great Britain and the United States in the nineteenth century. A pioneering writer of modern fantasy literature, he was the mentor of Lewis Carroll. He has been cited as a major literary influence by dozens of illustrious authors including David Lindsay, J. M. Barrie, Lord Dunsany, Mark Twain, Hope Mirrlees, G. K. Chesterton, Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Neil Gaiman. In his lifetime he authored some fifty volumes of novels, poetry, short stories, fantasy, sermons, and essays.