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    The Light Princess
    The Light Princess
    The Light Princess
    Ebook61 pages1 hour

    The Light Princess

    By George MacDonald

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    About this ebook

    "The Light Princess" is George MacDonald's 1864 fairy tale. It is the story of a young girl, the daughter of the King, who at her christening is cursed to have no gravity by the uninvited Princess Makemnoit, sister to the King and a spiteful and bitter woman. As a result the princess is in constant danger of being carried away by the wind. A captivatingly whimsical tale, "The Light Princess" is one of George MacDonald's most loved stories.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2010
    ISBN9781596252707
    Author

    George MacDonald

    George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a popular Scottish lecturer and writer of novels, poetry, and fairy tales. Born in Aberdeenshire, he was briefly a clergyman, then a professor of English literature at Bedford and King's College in London. W. H. Auden called him "one of the most remarkable writers of the nineteenth century."

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    Reviews for The Light Princess

    4/5

    194 ratings9 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This is a very standard fairy tale book. This would be a good book to use for a lesson on fairy tales and folklore to act as an example and to compare to other works. I like that the princess has some spunk, but I find the gender roles to be problematic.
    • 4/5
      There are actually three stories in this ebook. "The Light Princess" is surprisingly charming; it reads like a Victorianization of a Grimm story. "The Giant's Heart" is pretty saccharine, although it does have a couple of good moments. "The Golden Key" is probably saturated in symbolism from some kind of secret society or another, but I loved it anyway.
    • 5/5
      This is my favorite fairy tale of ALL TIME. It is only worth owning, however, in the Maurice-Sendak-illustrated printing, so don't bother with anything less!
    • 5/5
      I have a badly illustrated edition; want a better one.
    • 4/5
      Puns ahoy!I have read (and listened to an audio recording of) this book many times since I was younger, and this is the first time I bothered to look up George MacDonald, who turns out to have been a major influence on C.S. Lewis, and a friend of Lewis Carroll.The Light Princess is a standard princess/evil older woman relative fairy tale, with some metaphysics thrown in. The story makes much of the double meaning of gravity (mind and body), and the transformative power of the mind on the world. It reads like a fractured fairy tale, but with a more thoughtful moral.I assume this edition is unabridged, since there are no notes to the contrary.
    • 4/5
      A great story about a princess who couldn't fall! ...in more than one way. Neither gravity in body, nor gravity in heart seem to affect this girl!In due course, the princess' hapless condition and curse is mended by the simple, giving love of one heroic prince. Seeing in her who she truly is (and not who she appears to all to be), he falls madly and unexpectedly in love with this strange young woman and tries to teach her what love is--"this beehive of honey and stings," as MacDonald puts it.The prince would but give his beloved what makes her--even in her sad, enchanted stupidity and infant-like self-interest--the happiest, and to let that be all the good he needs for himself: hers. In the end, his giving of himself, because of his love, displacing what was amiss in her heart, heals the "light" princess......and the girl who once couldn't fall, has suddenly fallen in love!"The Light Princess" is delightful, imaginative, and inspiring, though I can't say that I'm at all surprised--George MacDonald is the author. MacDonald always has a way of sparking wonder, creativity, and thought. Deep, unique, mystical, and endlessly insightful, MacDonald is my, and C.S. Lewis', favorite author for good reason. G.K. Chesterton once said that he counted George MacDonald as one of the three or four greatest men of the 19th century. Read him.
    • 5/5
      Enchanting story about a princess who is cursed at her christening so that she is light as air -- gravity does not affect her. This would be a good read-aloud.
    • 2/5
      For a young audience, full of puns and word plays on light and gravity.
    • 5/5
      What a fun story this was! We enjoyed reading it aloud because the characters and dialogue were so humorous. Lovely illustrations in this edition, too.

    Book preview

    The Light Princess - George MacDonald

    THE LIGHT PRINCESS

    BY GEORGE MACDONALD

    A Digireads.com Book

    Digireads.com Publishing

    Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-3096-2

    Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-59625-270-7

    This edition copyright © 2011

    Please visit www.digireads.com

    CONTENTS

    1. What! No Children?

    2. Won't I, Just?

    3. She Can't Be Ours.

    4. Where Is She?

    5. What Is to Be Done?

    6. She Laughs Too Much.

    7. Try Metaphysics.

    8. Try a Drop of Water.

    9. Put Me in Again.

    10. Look at the Moon.

    11. Hiss!

    12. Where Is the Prince?

    13. Here I Am.

    14. This Is Very Kind of You.

    15. Look at the Rain!

    1. What! No Children?

    Once upon a time, so long ago that I have quite forgotten the date, there lived a king and queen who had no children.

    And the king said to himself, All the queens of my acquaintance have children, some three, some seven, and some as many as twelve; and my queen has not one. I feel ill-used. So he made up his mind to be cross with his wife about it. But she bore it all like a good patient queen as she was. Then the king grew very cross indeed. But the queen pretended to take it all as a joke, and a very good one too.

    Why don't you have any daughters, at least? said he. I don't say sons; that might be too much to expect.

    I am sure, dear king, I am very sorry, said the queen.

    So you ought to be, retorted the king; you are not going to make a virtue of that, surely.

    But he was not an ill-tempered king, and in any matter of less moment would have let the queen have her own way with all his heart. This, however, was an affair of state.

    The queen smiled.

    You must have patience with a lady, you know, dear king, said she.

    She was, indeed, a very nice queen, and heartily sorry that she could not oblige the king immediately.

    2. Won't I, Just?

    The king tried to have patience, but he succeeded very badly. It was more than he deserved, therefore, when, at last, the queen gave him a daughter—as lovely a little princess as ever cried.

    The day drew near when the infant must be christened. The king wrote all the invitations with his own hand. Of course somebody was forgotten. Now it does not generally matter if somebody is forgotten, only you must mind who. Unfortunately, the king forgot without intending to forget; and so the chance fell upon the Princess Makemnoit, which was awkward. For the princess was the king's own sister; and he ought not to have forgotten her. But she had made herself so disagreeable to the old king, their father, that he had forgotten her in making his will; and so it was no wonder that her brother forgot her in writing his invitations. But poor relations don't do anything to keep you in mind of them. Why don't they? The king could not see into the garret she lived in, could he?

    She was a sour, spiteful creature. The wrinkles of contempt crossed the wrinkles of peevishness, and made her face as full of wrinkles as a pat of butter. If ever a king could be justified in forgetting anybody, this king was justified in forgetting his sister, even at a christening. She looked very odd, too. Her forehead was as large as all the rest of her face, and projected over it like a precipice. When she was angry, her little eyes flashed blue. When she hated anybody, they shone yellow and green. What they looked like when she loved anybody, I do not know; for I never heard of her loving anybody but herself, and I do not think she could have managed that if she had not somehow got used to herself. But what made it highly imprudent in the king to forget her was that she was awfully clever. In fact, she was a witch; and when she bewitched anybody, he very soon had enough of it; for she beat all the wicked fairies in wickedness, and all the clever ones in cleverness. She despised all the modes we read of in history, in which offended fairies and witches have taken their revenges; and therefore, after waiting and waiting in vain for an invitation, she made up her mind at last to go without one, and make the whole family miserable, like a princess as she was.

    So she put on

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