George MacDonald and Maurice Sendak - The Light Princess (pdf) torrent

George MacDonald and Maurice Sendak (illus.) - The Light Princess (Dell, 1969). 110 pages.

New scan. Searchable pdf (clearscan) with contents in bookmarks, accurate pagination and metadata, etc.


I scanned this mainly because of the wonderful Maurice Sendak illustrations; and I just wanted to see what results I could get scanning illustrations. The results are pretty good, though not perfect. Considering the source was an ancient battered paperback with pages browning with age, I'm pleased with how it came out.

Note: The original had a blank page on the reverse of each full-page illustration, and I've retained those blank pages in order to keep the proper pagination in the pdf.


description:

The Light Princess--the princess who "lost her gravity"--has been essential fiction for several generations of children. This new edition is a companion volume (same page size, similar design) to our edition of The Golden Key, of which Publishers' Weekly said: "Maurice Sendak lights the way through MacDonald's Kingdom with the most mystical, the most poetic pictures of his distinguished career." Now Sendak has made the pictures The Light Princess always deserved to have.
This is the only separate edition available that preserves the authentic text; it is neither cut nor edited nor "improved" in any way.

Review

The fact that George MacDonald--a scholar as well as a preacher and writer--once read this fairy tale to his students instead of giving them a lecture says volumes about the man and his beliefs. It also says much about his faith in the power of stories. The Light Princess is a simple enough tale, clearly written for children--a princess at her christening is cursed by a wicked witch with lightness (she floats blissfully about the castle all day long, and gets into all sorts of adventures, as one can easily imagine)--yet it holds a powerful spiritual truth. Gravity, weight, sorrow, suffering--all of this the princess misses, but with all of these she misses love, for what is love without weight, without body? What is love without falling? She discovers this truth, of course, only at the last minute when a faithful prince loves her enough to die for her.

Sometimes it's not a ponderous lecture--or sermon--that we need in order to experience what incarnation is about. --Doug Thorpe.