Malcolm

By George MacDonald and Michael Phillips

A masterpiece of mystery and spiritual power from one of the Victorian era’s greatest writers, the Scottish author who inspired C. S. Lewis.
 
This towering 1875 novel, set in the Scottish fishing village of Cullen, is considered by many as George MacDonald’s fictional masterwork. The intricate tale is more true to place than any of MacDonald’s books. As Malcolm is drawn into the web of secrets surrounding majestic Lossie House, with the marquis of Lossie and his tempestuous daughter Florimel at the center of them, we meet some of MacDonald’s most memorable characters. Through them Malcolm must unravel many mysteries that hang over the town and its people—and himself.
 
The Scottish dialect is more impenetrable than in many of MacDonald’s other Scottish novels, and has been translated into readable English in this newly updated edition by MacDonald’s biographer Michael Phillips. Calling it a “masterpiece of plot, drama, mystery, characterization, and spiritual depth,” it was Malcolm which in the 1970s set Phillips on his life’s-work to acquaint the world with MacDonald’s forgotten legacy through new editions of MacDonald’s work. Phillips says, “Malcolm is always an ideal choice for new readers to begin a deeper acquaintance with MacDonald,” especially as it is set in the locale from which The Cullen Collection of new editions derives its name. Phillips’s lengthy informative introduction sets Malcolm’s story colorfully into the context of MacDonald’s two 1870s visits to Cullen. Phillips also provides readers new to the works of MacDonald with a historical overview of the Scotsman’s writing and significance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9780795352072

George MacDonald

George MacDonald (1824 – 1905) was a Scottish-born novelist and poet. He grew up in a religious home influenced by various sects of Christianity. He attended University of Aberdeen, where he graduated with a degree in chemistry and physics. After experiencing a crisis of faith, he began theological training and became minister of Trinity Congregational Church. Later, he gained success as a writer penning fantasy tales such as Lilith, The Light Princess and At the Back of the North Wind. MacDonald became a well-known lecturer and mentor to various creatives including Lewis Carroll who famously wrote, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland fame.

Book preview

Malcolm

George MacDonald

Introductory material © 2018 by Michael Phillips

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Electronic edition published 2018 by RosettaBooks

ISBN (Kindle): 978-0-7953-5207-2

www.RosettaBooks.com

The Cullen Collection of the

Fiction of George MacDonald

1. Phantastes (1858)

2. David Elginbrod (1863)

3. The Portent (1864)

4. Adela Cathcart (1864)

5. Alec Forbes of Howglen (1865)

6. Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood (1867)

7. Robert Falconer (1868)

8. Guild Court (1868)

9. The Seaboard Parish (1868)

10. At the Back of the North Wind (1871)

11. Ranald Bannerman’s Boyhood (1871)

12. The Princess and the Goblin (1872)

13. Wilfrid Cumbermede (1872)

14. The Vicar’s Daughter (1872)

15. Gutta Percha Willie (1873)

16. Malcolm (1875)

17. The Wise Woman (1875)

18. St. George and St. Michael (1876)

19. Thomas Wingfold Curate (1876)

20. The Marquis of Lossie (1877)

21. Paul Faber Surgeon (1879)

22. Sir Gibbie (1879)

23. Mary Marston (1881)

24. Castle Warlock (1881)

25. The Princess and Curdie (1882)

26. Weighed and Wanting (1882)

27. Donal Grant (1883)

28. What’s Mine’s Mine (1886)

29. Home Again (1887)

30. The Elect Lady (1888)

31. A Rough Shaking (1890)

32. There and Back (1891)

33. The Flight of the Shadow (1891)

34. Heather and Snow (1893)

35. Lilith (1895)

36. Salted With Fire (1897)

37. Far Above Rubies (1898)

The introductions to the 37 volumes form a continuous picture of George MacDonald’s literary life, viewed through the prism of the development of his written legacy of works. While each book can of course be read on its own, every introduction picks up where that to the previous volume left off, with special attention to the title under consideration. The introductions together, as a biography of MacDonald’s life as a writer, are compiled in Volume 38.

38. George MacDonald A Writer’s Life

The Cullen Collection

of the Fiction of George MacDonald

New editions of George MacDonald’s classic fiction works updated and introduced by Michael Phillips

CONTENTS

Foreword to The Cullen Collection

Introduction to Malcolm

NOTE: As the introductions to the 37 volumes of The Cullen Collection form a continuous portrait of George MacDonald’s life, and as many of the introductions contain comprehensive and detailed discussion and analysis of the title in question—its plot, themes, and circumstances of writing—some first-time readers may choose to skip ahead to the story itself, saving the introduction for later, so as not to spoil the story.

1. The Corpse

2. Barbara Catanach

3. The Mad Laird

4. Lady Florimel

5. Duncan MacPhail

6. Alexander Graham

7. The Cannon

8. The Salmon Trout

9. The Funeral

10. The Old Church

11. The Churchyard

12. The Marquis of Lossie

13. Meg Partan’s Lamp

14 The Slope of the Dune

15. The Storm

16. The Accusation

17. A Quarrel

18. Duncan’s Pipes

19. Peace Offering

20. Mediation

21. The Home Season

22. The Feast

23. Night Watch

24. The Report

25. The Legend of Lord Gernon

26. A Fisher Wedding

27. Duncan’s History

28. Revival

29. Wandering Stars

30. The Skipper’s Chamber

31. The Library

32. Kirkbyres

33. The Blow

34. The Cutter

35. The Two Dogs

36. Colonsay Castle

37. The Deil’s Winnock

38. Clouded Sapphires

39. Duncan’s Disclosure

40. The Wizard’s Chamber

41. The Rumour

42. The Baillies’ Barn

43. Mrs. Stewart’s Claim

44. Torment

45. Lizzy Findlay

46. The Schoolmaster’s Cottage

47. More Evil News

48. That Night

49. The Secret Stairway

50. Abduction

51. An Honest Plot

52. The Letters

53. Duff Harbour

54. Miss Horn and the Piper

55. The Cuttle Fish and the Crab

56. Miss Horn and Lord Lossie

57. The Laird and the Bonnie Man

58. The Cry from the Chamber

59. Defiance

60. The Accident

61. At the Bedside

62. Father and Son

63. Witness

64. End or Beginning

Appendix:

MacDonald Family Links to Glencoe and Culloden

Papa seems so quietly happy.

—Louisa MacDonald, May 4, 1872, from Deskford (near Cullen)

Papa does enjoy this place so much.

—Louisa MacDonald, May 6, 1872 from the Seafield Arms Hotel, Cullen

Papa oh! so jolly & bright & happy…Papa was taken for Lord Seafield yesterday.

—Louisa MacDonald, Sept. 2, 1873, from Cullen

Papa is very poorly. He ought to go to Cullen for a week I think.

—Louisa MacDonald, October 5, 1873, from London

FOREWORD

The Cullen Collection

of the Fiction of George MacDonald

The series name for these works of Scotsman George MacDonald (1824-1905) has its origins in the 1830s when the boy MacDonald formed what would be a lifelong affection for the northeast Scottish village of Cullen.

The ocean became young George’s delight. At the age of eleven, writing from Portsoy or Cullen, he announced to his father his intention to go to sea as a sailor—in his words, as soon as possible. The broad white beach of Cullen Bay, the Seatown, the grounds of Cullen House, the temple of Psyche (Temple of the Winds), Cullen Burn, the dwellings along Grant Street, Scarnose, and especially Findlater Castle, all seized the youth’s imagination with a love that never left him. MacDonald continued to visit Huntly and Cullen throughout his life, using his childhood love for his homeland as the backdrop for his richest novels, including what is arguably his greatest work of fiction, Malcolm, published in 1875.

We therefore honor MacDonald’s unique relationship to Cullen with these newly updated editions of his novels. In Cullen, in certain respects more than in any other place, one finds the transcendent spirit of George MacDonald’s life and the ongoing legacy of his work still magically alive after a century and a half. This release of The Cullen Collection of the Fiction of George MacDonald coincides with a memorial bench and plaque established on Cullen’s Castle Hill commemorating MacDonald’s visits to the region.

To those readers familiar with my previous editions of MacDonald’s novels, I should make clear that eighteen of the volumes in this new series (including this one) are updated and expanded titles from the Bethany House series of the 1980s. Limitations of length dictated much about how those previous volumes were produced. To interest a publisher in the project during those years when MacDonald was a virtual unknown in the publishing world, certain sacrifices had to be made. Cuts to length had to be more severe than I would have preferred. Practicality drove the effort.

Added to that was the challenge of working with editors who occasionally changed MacDonald’s wording and removed more than I intended, then also sometimes took liberties to the opposite extreme by inserting words, sentences, even whole paragraphs that originated from neither myself nor MacDonald. Those editions were also subject to sanitizing editorial scrutiny, which occasionally removed aspects of MacDonald’s more controversial perspectives, and added evangelically correct words and phrases to bring the text more in line with accepted orthodoxy. As MacDonald himself knew, there are times an author has little say in details of final text, design, art, or overall quality. Thus, the covers and titles were not mine. And I was often kept in the dark about internal textual changes and was unable to correct them. Yet, too, many of MacDonald’s expansive perspectives were preserved (though what was excised and what was left often seemed random and inconsistent) for which I applaud Bethany’s openness. Their publications of the 1980s helped inaugurate a worldwide renaissance of interest in MacDonald and we owe them our gratitude. Frustrating as the process occasionally was, I thus remain enormously grateful for those editions. They were wonderful door-openers for many thousands into MacDonald’s world.

Hopefully this new and more comprehensive set of MacDonald’s fiction will take up where they left off. Not constrained by the limitations that dictated production of the former volumes, these new editions, though identical at many points, have been expanded—sometimes significantly. In that sense they reflect MacDonald’s originals somewhat more closely, while still preserving the flavor, pace, and readability of their predecessors. Needless to say, the doctrinal scrubbings have been corrected and the deleted passages reinstated. Nineteen additional titles have been added. The thirteen realistic novels among these have been updated according to the same priorities that guided the earlier Bethany House series. That process will be explained in more detail in the introductions to the books of the series. The final six, which would more accurately be termed fantasy, have not been edited in any way. They are faithful reproductions of the originals exactly as they were first published. These six titles—Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, The Princess and the Goblin, The Wise Woman, The Princess and Curdie, and Lilith—are so well known and have been published literally in hundreds of editions through the years, that it has seemed best to reproduce them for The Cullen Collection with the same texts by which they are generally known. ¹

Dedicated followers of all great men and women continually seek hints that reveal their inner being—the true man, the true woman. What were they really like? What made him or her tick? Many biographies and studies attempt to answer such questions. In George MacDonald’s case, however, a panorama of windows exists that reveals far more about his person than the sum-total of everything that has been written about him over the years. Those are the novels that encompass his life’s work. The volumes of this series represent the true spiritual biography of the man, a far more important biography than life’s details can ever tell.

In 1911, six years after his death, George MacDonald’s son Ronald wrote of his father:

The ideals of his didactic novels were the motive of his own life…a life of literal, and, which is more, imaginative consistency with his doctrine…There has probably never been a writer whose work was a better expression of his personal character. This I am not engaged to prove; but I very positively assert…that in his novels…and allegories…one encounters...the same rich imagination, the same generous lover of God and man, the same consistent practiser of his own preaching, the same tender charity to the sinner with the same uncompromising hostility to the sin, which were known in daily use and by his own people counted upon more surely than sunshine. ²

Thirty years after the publication of my one-volume biography George MacDonald Scotland’s Beloved Storyteller, it now gives me great pleasure to present this thirty-seven-volume biography of the man, the Scotsman, the prophetic spiritual voice who is George MacDonald. ³

How fitting is the original title in which Ronald MacDonald’s sketch of his father quoted above first appeared, From A Northern Window. For any attempted portrait of the man George MacDonald becomes at once a window into his homeland as well.

Therefore, I invite you to gaze back in time through the northern windows of these volumes. Picture yourself perhaps near the cheerful hearth described in the opening pages of What’s Mine’s Mine, looking out the window to the cold seas and mountains in the distance, where perhaps you get a fleeting glimpse of highlanders Ian and Alister Macruadh.

Or imagine yourself walking up Duke Street in Huntly from MacDonald’s birth home, following in the footsteps of fictional Robert Falconer to the town square.

Or envision yourself on some windswept highland moor with Gibbie or Cosmo Warlock.

Or walk up the circular staircase of Fyvie Castle to Donal Grant’s tiny tower hideaway where he began to unravel the mysteries of that ancient and spooky place.

Or walk up from Cullen’s Seatown in your mind’s eye alongside Malcolm selling the fish in his creel, turning at the Market Cross into Grant Street and continuing past Miss Horn’s house and up the hill to the entrance of the Cullen House grounds.

Or perhaps climb Castle Hill to the George MacDonald memorial bench and gaze across the sweep of Cullen Bay as Malcolm’s story comes to life before your eyes.

From any of these settings, whether real or imaginary, drift back through the years and gaze through the panoramic windows of these stories, and take in with pleasure the drama, relationships, images, characters, settings, and spiritual truths George MacDonald offers us as we are drawn into his world.

Michael Phillips

Cullen, Morayshire

Scotland, 2017

Special Acknowledgment

A final word is especially fitting for the new editions of Malcolm and The Marquis of Lossie.

Cullen’s memorial George MacDonald bench owes a heartfelt word of gratitude to three men. The entire Castle Hill project—reclaiming the inaccessible and nearly forgotten historic site from both gorse and forgetfulness—has been their visionary brainchild, and owes thousands of hours of very hard work (literally through rain, wind, sleet, and snow) to Dennis Paterson, Barry Addison, and Stan Slater.

All Cullen, and all lovers of George MacDonald, owe them (and their many co-labourers) profound appreciation. They have contributed, as have many through the years, in yet one more way of keeping the history of Cullen, and the legacy of George MacDonald, vibrant and alive for future generations.

INTRODUCTION

Glorying in the Fountain of Existence

George MacDonald’s fame on the world stage, and his reputation as one of the Victorian era’s leading authors, could well be said to have culminated during his speaking tour in America of 1872-73. ⁴

By any standards it was a triumphant tour de force in the literary world. Everywhere he went from Boston to Chicago during those eight months, he was greeted by enthusiastic, sold-out crowds. He was welcomed into the hearts of thousands of Americans whose spirits had already been warmed and fed by his books and ideas and portrayal of the divine Fatherhood, not merely as a famous author, but as a spiritual man who they felt knew God. Somehow they sensed that he could convey the heart of God into their hearts too. Men and women the world over still feel that way today. The author they came to see was the man of this photograph, taken in a studio in New York in 1873. The trip is covered in more detail in the introduction to Gutta Percha Willie, Volume 15 of The Cullen Collection.

MacDonald’s daily work schedule obviously changed dramatically during those hectic and fatiguing months of travel and lecturing when he was able to write very little. Almost immediately upon his return from the United States in May of 1873, however, he resumed the writing schedule that had been put on hold by the overseas tour. At the top of the list was this book, Malcolm. How fitting it is that the first book written after the triumphant high point of the tour was destined to become, in the eyes of many, his greatest novel of all.

One of the first items on the agenda, therefore, was another visit to the northeast Scotland village of Cullen where Malcolm would be set. He and Louisa had visited Cullen in the spring of the previous year before leaving for America. With the trip across the Atlantic behind them, they now returned in the fall of 1873.

Both visits were lengthy enough that MacDonald had ample leisure to talk to local fishermen, walk the streets and beach, and visit Findlater Castle about which he had written in the poem A Story of the Seashore, published in Poems in 1857. It is possible, even in the 1850s, that a story set in Cullen was brewing in his mind. He visited Cullen House during both his visits of 1872 and 1873 (the expansive castle-like manor house which figures prominently in Malcolm’s story), and these visits gave him opportunity to explore the house and grounds in preparation for the novel.

Though much has been written about MacDonald’s two visits to Cullen in the early 1870s, it is not known when he sat down and began to write the book, or how much of the novel was actually written in Cullen and how much came later after his return to England. ¹ As a novelist myself, this is of supreme interest to me. How did MacDonald incorporate the stories and characters that were developing in his head, and then set them down on paper, amid the daily ebb and flow of events in his daily life? A writer, in a sense, lives in two worlds simultaneously. It is a fascinating process moving between the two, trying to create an imaginary world at the same time that you are living in the real world. The details of MacDonald’s writer’s life may therefore interest me more than most readers. MacDonald may have begun writing Malcolm during their visit to Cullen in 1872, though in Louisa’s first letter below she indicates that he had not started but was anxious to begin. He was also still involved at the time in finishing the proofs for The Vicar’s Daughter.

Backtracking chronologically in order to look at both MacDonald’s visits to Cullen in conjunction with the writing of Malcolm, we now cast our gaze back briefly to the spring of the year before the American lecture tour. To keep the two visits separate, as well as to highlight and differentiate other thematic sections, headings will be provided for this lengthy introduction to Malcolm.

MACDONALD’S CULLEN VISIT OF APRIL-MAY 1872

Arriving in Cullen in late April of 1872, George and Louisa stayed at the Seafield Arms Hotel, the inn Louisa refers to, but also spent time at Cullen House—whether lodging there (doubtful) or only visiting during the day (probable) is unknown. The Countess of Seafield was away but apparently gave them a key. They also spent some time with Rev. Ker and his wife at the manse of the Deskford church, inland from Cullen about five miles. Beyond that, Louisa’s letters to her children back home in the south of England are vague about the specifics of their movements and lodgings. Their stay in Deskford particularly intrigues me as I suspect Deskford (also known as Kirktown of Deskford) to be the name upon which MacDonald drew for his fictional Kirkbyres in the novel. (The moor MacDonald describes on the way to Kirkbyres, however, is a few miles beyond Deskford, making the distance from Cullen to Deskford considerably shorter than from Portlossie to Kirkbyres in the book.)

One thing Louisa’s letters are not vague about—how much her husband loved Cullen and felt at home among its people. In another interesting detail, in the book MacDonald speaks of the pleasant aroma coming from the saddler’s shop, mentioned here by Louisa outside their hotel window.

"Seafield Arms Hotel,

"Monday April 29.

This is a nice interesting place, she wrote shortly after their arrival. "It is not so cold as I expected. I sat on a rock for a whole hour today waiting for Papa who went on farther than I would go—and I really enjoyed the air very much. The sea is so divinely clear—the grass grows down to the water’s edge—& the sands are very nice to walk on. The fishing village roofs are picturesque—thatched and red tiles—but I can’t say further than that—but then I am not Scotch you see & it takes a long time to see these things as having any comfort in them.

"We are in a nice enough Inn, and I hope we shall be able to remain here, though we have no prospect from our windows but some small houses—one of which has over the door Mr. Strachan, Saddler.

Papa is so well—I am sure he is enjoying all the Scotch surroundings exceedingly—tho’ he is getting a little anxious about his new book wh. is not yet begun. He thought we were so lucky in having got to a place where we shd. not have to speak at all unless we liked as we don’t mind being silent to each other—but while we were sitting at tea—the first evening…in walked a young lady who declared she couldn’t find George MacDonald the author’s house, and had come to see him. She told us how all the town knew we were here—comforting assurance!…The Countess of Seafield…is just gone to London—so we shall not see her—but Papa has written to her to ask her for the run of her house. The estate is very fine—including woods—wh. however I have only seen at a distance—the rest of the country is bare just here—but we had a lovely walk yesterday morning Papa & I—we heard the larks singing over the sea, & over the cornfields. We like being out so much—so different from our last year in Holland.—Mr. & Mrs. Ker…came here this morning to invite us to their house—to stay a day or two—we are going to spend Saturday there—he is a Brd. Church minister…& seems a pleasant gentleman. ²

Then a few days later, referencing their visit to Deskford, Louisa writes again:

"Cullen.

"Saturday.

"We got your telegram at Deskford the free kirk manse. The Kers. Such a sweet family…The quiet here—is something to be real thankful for. Papa seems so quietly happy. He enjoys going out so much & loves talking to all the fisher people and country folk & they really are so nice, though not nearly so pleasant or polite as the Highlanders. We have made arrangements today to stay here a fortnight, so I have no bother with housekeeping—wh. I fancy would be a problem as there are no shops to speak of & I should not know how to find out where to get sugar and meat. The house is very comfortable & the people amusing & kind…

I dare say I shall come to you—next week at any rate. Papa is going to lecture in Dundee, Liverpool & Leicester going back—but he won’t mind my going to you & I should not think of your having everything to do without me. ³

Whether her reference to staying on another two weeks meant at the manse in Deskford or in Cullen itself, it is difficult to know. It hardly seems she would have been concerned about provisions in either place, either as guests of the Kers, or in town. Indeed, Cullen had a profusion of shops of every kind.

In any event, two days later, they had returned the five miles to Cullen, when the following letter was written. MacDonald had apparently thought of renting a fisherman’s cottage, but they were again at the hotel on the high street, now the A98 through town. Louisa’s letter is headed with the words, Seafield Arms Hotel, though the reference to staying in a house adds another small puzzle to the sequence of their movements and lodgings. (By the landlady of the house, she clearly means the proprietress of the Seafield Arms Hotel. The landlady of the fictional Lossie Arms is twice referenced in the story, including, in Chapter 22, her skill at cooking for large groups, which Louisa also mentions.) Louisa writes:

"Seafield Arms Hotel,

"Cullen, Banffshire,

"Monday.

"Very glad to have had your letter from home…

"This is a nice place—nice sky, lovely cream, plenty of salt fish, beautiful sea, lovely cakes, scones, & biscuits—respectable mutton—fine rocks—lots of poor fishermen’s houses—think Papa has changed his mind about living in one of them. It isn’t Devonshire & one has to learn the cold bare bleakness before one can admire it. People all nice & friendly. Landlady a character, jolly woman—cooked for a regiment mess for fifteen years before she & her husband took this house. Told Papa yesterday he needs not think to pass any where without being known. ‘Some people have to wait till they die to be known & be talked about—but that’s not your case Sir’…

Papa does enjoy this place so much. ⁴

During their visit, MacDonald gave a lecture on Tennyson in the Cullen Town Hall to help raise money for Cullen’s library and newsroom, and also preached at the Congregational Church.

About his several encounters with MacDonald during that spring of 1872, the reminiscences of a certain W. McK Bell were printed forty years later in an English newspaper (1912, in the Shields Daily News). We love this account as the Salmon Bothy loop is one of Judy’s favorite walks when we are in Cullen—just one example of how alive MacDonald’s visits to Cullen remain even after all these years.

"Mr. Bell said his first acquaintance with…Dr. Geo. MacDonald took place in his native village on the shores of the Moray Firth, in Banffshire. It occurred in a rather unusual place, a salmon fisherman’s bothy. The doctor was fond of strolling about the lovely little bays backed by high precipitous cliffs that are such a delightful characteristic of the Moray Firth coast, and generally called in at the fisherman’s bothy. Nothing delighted him better than to have a ‘crack’ with these hardy sun-browned toilers of the deep.

"The novelist was residing in this remote Banffshire village for the purpose of writing his novels entitled ‘Malcolm’ and its sequel ‘The Marquis of Lossie,’ the scenes of which are laid in the village and its neighbourhood…All the sea and landscape descriptions in Malcolm and its sequel were written after careful observation, and notes, mental and otherwise, taken on the spot. The essayist said he could picture to himself almost the exact spots where the novelist had stood or sat when looking upon the scenes he had so faithfully and artistically described. They were all familiar to him. He was a well-known figure in the village, and might have been seen night after night repairing to a well-known coign of vantage, the brae head of the village, to gaze in ecstasy upon the brilliant shafts of light emanating from the setting sun…

‘Glorious! Glorious!’ was all he could ejaculate when he had seen the beautiful visions disappear, and the sombre northern twilight sky take its place. He was passionately fond of looking at the resplendent summer sunsets of this Northern Firth. ⁵

After their visit to Cullen, Louisa returned to London while MacDonald himself continued south more slowly, lecturing on the way as Louisa had mentioned in her letter above. He wrote her a short letter from Liverpool which I find interesting simply from the touching personal exchange with Louisa—he seems so innocently childlike when writing to her!—and also from the fact that he is still struggling to finish The Vicar’s Daughter proofs.

Richmond Park May 24, 1872,

[Liverpool]

You won’t mind a short note, dearest—for I have been busy with the Vicar’s Daughter all day, & now I must see to my lecture this evening for I am far from ready. Thanks many for your letters. It was very stupid of me to forget last night to write to you. I meant to do it of course, but was very tired, & it went out of my head. I have this morning had the nice long letter you sent to the Cupples. The Postmaster sent it on here.

I made Noble take £5 for his work—that leaves me £14 for last night…Maurice and I leave about one tomorrow for Leicester…

I long to be home to you, darling. I am dull & stupid, but able to work, & have nothing particular the matter. I sent you a telegram this morning, & here is a cheque for £10…I feel restless till I get home. My love to all the creatures.

Dear love,

Your Husband. ⁶

MACDONALD’S CULLEN VISIT OF SEPTEMBER 1873

A year after the visit to Cullen recounted above, with the America tour behind them, the time had come to write the long-anticipated story in earnest. MacDonald now returned to Cullen in the fall of 1873 to get working on Malcolm more determinedly. (Or perhaps, as we shall see a bit later, to complete what he may have begun the previous year.) On this occasion, George and Louisa were accompanied by Octavia Hill and their two daughters Lilia and Grace. It is likely during this visit that they stayed at 26 Grant Street where the 1925 bibliography of MacDonald by John Malcolm Bulloch indicates that Malcolm was written. ⁷ Whether it was a boarding house at the time, a private residence, or what we would today call a Bed and Breakfast, is unknown. Again MacDonald lectured at the Cullen Town Hall (this time on Burns), and during their visit they were apparently again provided a key to Cullen House.

One cannot but tingle at the thought of George MacDonald sitting in Cullen House while he dreamt up Malcolm’s story in his fertile imagination, or in a tiny room of their lodgings at 26 Grant Street, turning that very house into the home of his fictional Miss Horn.

Indeed, it is there on the lower slope of Grant Street that Malcolm’s story opens, a dead body lying in an upstairs room when Mrs. Catanach arrives from her house further up the hill on the corner of Grant and Castle streets, hoping to surreptitiously view the remains.

It is little wonder that Cullen is alive with the spirit of MacDonald. Everywhere you turn, even today, one is confronted with echoing passages from the book. One wonders if the hard Scotch mistress of their lodgings, as Louisa described her in a letter home, formed the basis for the character of Miss Horn. (This conjecture is purely my own and contradicts MacDonald’s own assertion in the footnote he added in Chapter 42 of Malcolm in which he says that he did not base the characters in the book on any real people.) Meanwhile, it is not hard to picture MacDonald sitting across the room from his wife, while Louisa was writing her letter, opening his story by describing the very house they were staying in.

In that letter home, Louisa described the early days of their arrival for their 1873 visit:

"Sept. 2, 1873.

"These lodgings looked deplorable & the bedrooms are really dismal enough—but the woman is obliging tho’ Scotch & hard. The beach is grand as it used to be—the rocks as fine—the Seafield grounds as beautiful, the people about us as kind as ever. We had a long walk this morning. Grace & I sat under the rocks while the others went out and talked to the Port Nockie fishermen. Grace reads me to sleep from the Saturday Review.

Miss Hill is very interesting…Papa oh! so jolly & bright & happy…Papa was taken for Lord Seafield yesterday. ⁸

Louisa later describes a visit to Findlater Castle, which plays such a spooky role in Malcolm.

"Sept. 6, 1873.

"We have had a long time today at Findlater Castle & Grace & Miss Hill have been sketching it. We are all sleepy but we are all getting through. The air is cold but very bracing. I should like to send lots of love to you all—I should like to look at you all tonight.

We drove to Findlater or rather were driven—in a dog cart. Six in a dog cart! We had biscuits & bread & cheese for lunch up there—then at four o’clock we walked to Mr. Forbane’s house & Mrs. F. brought us all tumblers of what she called milk but it was more cream than milk & brought bread and butter. Harvest bread is only made at harvest time. The fields we came through were so pretty, full of women binding the sheaves & four men cutting corn. It was so pretty but I’m so tired. I can’t tell you how nice it was. ⁹

A letter from Octavia Hill to her sister Emily gives a picture of 1873 Cullen through another set of eyes.

"…As to me I am as well as it is possible to be, and very happy. We had magnificent weather for our journey; and here the weather is very nice, tho’ we have hardly had a day without some rain. We don’t pay any attention to it, but manage to be out seven or eight hours daily. The sea is so grand just now; there have been storms out at sea; and the swell sends the waves rolling in, and breaking in masses of foam about the rocks. There was a revival here among the fishermen twelve years ago; the effects of it seem really to have lasted; and everyone dates all the reforms from that. ¹⁰ The fishermen are a splendid race here; vigorous and simple. Mr. MacDonald seems so at home with them; and we often get into nice talks with them on the beach. The sea-town, as they call it, and another tiny village called Port Nochie contain nothing but fishermen; they hardly intermarry at all with the land populations; but are a distinct race, tho’ within a few yards of us here. They have only about six surnames in the place; every man is known by a nick-name. We spent the day on Wednesday at an old castle on a promontory of rock, washed on three sides by the sea itself. The position and plan remind me forcibly of Tintagel. It is called Finlater Castle, and is now nothing but a ruin. The family is merged in that of the present Lord Seafield, who is head of the clan Grant; and bears for his motto, ‘Stand fast Craig Ellachie!’ Do you remember Ruskin’s allusion to it in ‘The Two Paths’? Lord Seafield’s house is close to here. They are away; but have lent Mr. MacDonald keys to the garden and house…" ¹¹

About an unpleasant visit from relatives, and her husband’s Cullen lecture on Burns, Louisa wrote:

"Tuesday, September 16, 1873.

"Sunday was so crowded with walking & churchgoing & chapeling & trying to propitiate our cousins whom we unknowingly offended by being out when they arrived on Sat. morning…

15th I was so ill that I haven’t quite got over it yet, but I am better tonight. Papa lectured on Burns—alas! I couldn’t go—I was sorry. Yes dear they tell me he did say here and there & it produced the desired effect. [This mention of MacDonald’s here and there, is in reference to MacDonald’s distinct approach to the poet, and the different reaction of audiences to Burns in America and Scotland.] Every one seemed very much delighted with the lecture—this is so well dear. Isn’t it nice? ¹²

After their return home to England later that fall, Louisa implies that her husband was homesick for Cullen.

Papa is very poorly. He ought to go to Cullen for a week I think. All his life is gone again—he never smiles and he looks quite as miserable as he did before we went to Scotland. ¹³

As a final note about the visit to Cullen, the following is a portion of the obituary of George MacDonald printed in the Banffshire Journal on September 19, 1905:

Dr. MacDonald’s personality became known to many throughout the North as a gifted lecturer. In many towns throughout the north-eastern counties the appearance of the gifted singer and novelist was hailed as one of the events of the season. We may recall an occasion in 1873 when he lectured at Cullen on Burns…noting…that a serial story by him, the scene of which was laid at Cullen, would shortly appear. Need we say that he referred to those books which exercise a fascination on young and old—‘Malcolm,’ and ‘The Marquis of Lossie,’ in which Cullen and district and its people are so beautifully idealized. ¹⁴

Whenever and wherever MacDonald carried out the various stages of the writing of Malcolm, he apparently struggled with it more than usual. This is surprising because of how skillfully constructed it is. But he was scarcely halfway through the writing by the end of that year. Part of the delay may have been caused by his attempt to ready a new pamphlet-version of his 1851 Novalis translations with three additional songs, and also a few additions from other poets, to print as Christmas gifts at the end of 1873. MacDonald’s constant revisions of his poetry—Cullen would always vie with Novalis for the right to be called MacDonald’s first love—no doubt kept his mind from fully concentrating on his Cullen story.

He pushed through with Malcolm, however, and by mid-1874 was looking ahead to other projects as he resumed his multiple-books-a-year pace. The next eight years would prove to be the most productive of his career.

Malcolm was serialized through 1874 in the Glasgow Herald, a new experiment both for MacDonald and the paper, being his first non-magazine serialization. It would not be the last, for it was a great success.

Quoting the passage referred to earlier, in his 1925 bibliography, John Malcolm Bulloch says of Malcolm:

"The story was largely written at 26 Grant Street, Cullen, and describes that place as ‘Portlossie’ and MacDonald’s great grandfather’s escape from Culloden…The story was serialized in the Glasgow Herald…There was a perfect rush for the paper, purchasers, I am told by Mr. Hugh L. Cheyne, who lives in the house where ‘Malcolm’ was written, asking not for the Herald, but simply for ‘Makim.’" ¹⁵

MALCOLM’S ORIGINS—MACDONALD, STRAHAN, AND KING

Subsequent to my having summarized this series of events as I have been able to piece them together from the letters of the two visits, as well as the dates of publication, a document has recently surfaced that sheds fascinating additional light on the evolution of Malcolm. It is a hand-written contract for the book’s publication written on what appears to be two sheets of note paper, something less than full-size legal paper, with the publisher’s printed letterhead across the top:

Whether a more formal contract was executed later we do not know. This brief original hand-written document reads:

HENRY S. KING … PUBLISHERS.

65 Cornhill, July 29, 1872

M. George MacDonald is writing a story in 3 vols at present entitled Cosmo MacPhail—& it is hereby agreed between him and Mesr. Henry S. King & Co. that the whole copyright, (saving and except the American copyright) shall be the property of Henry S. King & Co. on the following conditions viz the payment of £200 at once the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, a further sum of £200 to be paid on the delivery of the second volume day 31st August and a further sum of £300 (making £700 in all) to be paid on the 12th September 1872. ¹⁶

Then follow the two signatures:

Henry S. King

George MacDonald

This informal but binding contract reveals several very interesting things.

One, MacDonald’s original title for the book was Cosmo MacPhail. Obviously he changed it. But Cosmo would get his opportunity for literary immortality nine years later in Castle Warlock. One can only speculate what would have been the subtle difference in flavor of both books had different names been used.

Two, King says that MacDonald had begun the writing of Malcolm in 1872 prior to the American tour, apparently with high hopes for the speed at which it would be written. Louisa had written on April 29 of that year, three months earlier, that he had not yet begun. So what Malcolm’s status might have been by July is anyone’s guess.

Whether or not he began writing in 1872, he obviously did not keep to this optimistic schedule—which called for him to complete the second volume by the end of August of that year, literally just days prior to their sailing for America. More than a year later, he still hadn’t finished the second volume. Whether he was paid on the timetable laid out in this agreement, even though he did not deliver on schedule, would be interesting to know.

Three, we see here what will become an increasing theme in MacDonald’s writing life—provision being made for separate negotiations for American copyrights. The prevailing notion has always been that American publishers pirated MacDonald’s books and that he was never paid for them. As we will increasingly see, however, this is not an entirely accurate picture. Pirating was certainly a serious problem in the publishing world, and MacDonald was a victim of the practice along with most well-known authors of the time. On the other hand, he was establishing positive, and probably lucrative, publishing relationships on both sides of the Atlantic. This exclusion of the American copyright from the King contract obviously indicates that MacDonald intended to make separate American arrangements.

Less than three months after MacDonald signed this document with King he was in Boston, where several major American publishers were located, including Lothrop, one of the primary publishers of MacDonald’s novels through the years—some of them authorized editions. From Boston he travelled to New York, where he was guest in the home of Dr. J.G. Holland of Scribner’s Magazine, with whom he had corresponded and already enjoyed a warm friendship, as discussed in the introductions to other books. Scribner’s had serialized Wilfrid Cumbermede, and its publishing company would later publish Dramatic and Miscellaneous Poems. Then it was on to Philadelphia, where George, Louisa, and Greville were guests in the home of the Quaker Lippincott family, owners of the publishing firm bearing their name. Within just a few months, MacDonald had personal relationships with several American publishers. As MacDonald had excluded American publications from his deal with King, one cannot but wonder, while staying in the Lippincott home in Philadelphia, if George and J.B. slipped away to J.B.’s private office and scratched out a similar agreement for the Malcolm doublet which Lippincott would publish simultaneously with King’s in 1875 and 1877.

Not surprisingly, after the American tour Lippincott now joined Routledge and Scribner, possibly Lothrop as well, in publishing many MacDonald titles among them in the coming years. After its release of Malcolm in the U.S., Lippincott continued to publish his work for many decades. Lothrop, Lippincott, and Routledge all became major players in MacDonald’s writing life, the first two registering their publications with the word Copyright. (In those days, however, Copyright was an admittedly loose term—the publishing pirates used it freely too—that in many cases had little practical meaning.) We have every reason to believe, especially with Scribner and Lippincott, that they were fair and equitable relationships. And when MacDonald began dealing directly with Dodd Mead and Routledge in another year or two (for U.S. editions of The Wise Woman and Thomas Wingfold Curate respectively), these were also legitimate, non-pirated arrangements.

From this handwritten contract I glean a fourth insight which might escape others, but which, as an author, I recognize very well. Sometimes when an author needs money he will oversell a book idea, painting an optimistic picture of progress and potential completion date. One of my earlier contracts for several of the Bethany MacDonald titles was indeed hastily hand-scribbled by my publisher, both sides eager to nail down the deal before a word had been written. Given the incredibly lucrative contracts of the previous year (Wilfrid Cumbermede and The Vicar’s Daughter) it is hard to believe that MacDonald could have been strapped for cash at the time of this agreement. Yet knowing how unrealistic these manuscript delivery dates turned out to be, I cannot but read the probability of exactly this scenario into the words M. George MacDonald is writing a story… Given the preliminary title, I doubt his Cullen story about Cosmo MacPhail was much past the drawing board stage. But I am speculating.

And finally, though this fact is completely invisible from the contract itself—we can yet again perceive Alexander Strahan lurking in the background.

In today’s world, Strahan may be likened to a businessman who declares bankruptcy, starts up under a new name, perhaps goes bust again, starts up once more…and so on. The mountain of debt he had accumulated resulted in his essentially being ousted from his own company and most of his magazines being taken from him in 1872. Yet even as control of his former enterprises were passing into other hands, Strahan was still launching new projects. Nothing kept him down for long—there were always new partners, new investors, new schemes of grandeur. One of those upcoming partners in Strahan’s new phase of vision after 1872 was Henry S. King.

As a quarter owner of Smith Elder, publishers of Phantastes, Henry King had probably known MacDonald for years. Having separated from Smith Elder some years earlier, King launched a publishing company of his own in 1871. It may have been the launch of his company that led to his involvement with Strahan, who, in spite of his financial troubles, for another year at least still controlled the influential magazine market. For the publicity of getting his own new imprint prominently positioned in Strahan’s Contemporary Review, King invested in Strahan’s, by then, shaky enterprises.

Patricia Srebrnik writes:

"Strahan ended up with Henry S. King, a former partner in Smith, Elder, and Company who had opened his own publishing house in 1871. For the sake of having his imprint appear on so prestigious a review as the Contemporary, King seems to have been willing to invest heavily in Strahan’s homeless periodicals…in time he would become Strahan’s associate in other ventures as well." ¹⁷

King’s initial involvement with the Contemporary Review led to a partnership with Strahan, when the two men launched a new magazine in 1872 called the Day of Rest. Over the next few years, King would be drawn deeper and deeper into Strahan’s financial morass, eventually winding up part owner, and creditor, of several of Strahan’s magazines in addition to Day of Rest.

Meanwhile, King had other ideas he hoped would help put his new company on the map. He now turned to the man whose career his former company had helped launch in the 1850s. Eager to land a prominent author, the 1872 date and hastily scribbled agreement with MacDonald makes perfect sense—King wanted to sign MacDonald!

Obviously there is nothing to suggest Strahan’s involvement in any kind of intermediary role here. King was well able to negotiate with MacDonald on his own, and was eager to do so. Though Strahan would continue active in the publishing world in a scaled-back role for several more years, it is clear that MacDonald had already been forced to widen his horizons. He did not completely cut his ties with Strahan, as many in the industry eventually had to do. But no longer did he put all his eggs in Strahan’s basket as he may have been doing during the late 1860s. In the early 1870s, Henry King’s star was on the rise, while the sun was slowly sinking toward the west (though he would not go quietly) for Alexander Strahan. ¹⁸

GEORGE MACDONALD, MALCOLM, AND CULLEN

Turning to the book itself, we now climb to the summit, the crown jewel of the MacDonald corpus. Malcolm’s compelling story has its origins in the 1830s when as a boy MacDonald formed a lifelong affection for the village of Cullen. MacDonald’s poem about Cullen, A Story of the Seashore, probably first written in the 1850s, is too lengthy to reproduce in full. The Introduction to the poem’s tale is fully evocative of Cullen as MacDonald describes a visit with his cousin Frank, with whom he grew up on the family farm at Huntly, and their encounter with a childhood friend who told them the eerie legend of Findlater Castle. By the time MacDonald came to write Malcolm, the Findlater legend had changed considerably. But the poem remains forever illustrative of MacDonald’s affection for the north, his love of his father, and his fond memories of both Huntly and Cullen. If the roots of Robert Falconer go back to the late 1850s, the roots of Malcolm extend even deeper into George MacDonald’s fiber of being. (Another story bearing similarities to the poem in a few respects, probably also based on Cullen and the surrounding region, is A Child’s Holiday from Adela Cathcart. ¹⁹)

Anyone who knows Cullen and its