This new edition of George MacDonald's 1871 story is updated and introduced as Volume 11 in The Cullen Collection by Michael Phillips.

Released in 1871 after At the Back of the North Wind, MacDonald’s first realistic “young readers” novel follows the boyhood adventures of Ranald Bannerman up to the moment in his teens when he realizes that he is “not a man.” Thus begins his growth into true manhood.

MacDonald’s editorship of the highly popular magazine Good Words for the Young in the late 1860s and early 1870s resulted in five young-reader stories, starting with At the Back of the North Wind, and continuing with Ranald Bannerman’s Boyhood and The Princess and the Goblin in succession. Set in and around MacDonald's Scottish hometown of Huntly, many of young Ranald’s escapades, as in most of MacDonald’s Scots stories, are autobiographical. Ranald Bannerman fictionally presents the lighter, occasionally mischievous, side of MacDonald's boyhood.

“The essential truth of George MacDonald’s boyhood will be found in Ranald Bannerman and in Alec Forbes of Howglen—not that, save in a few instances, actual incidents are related: but if you will regard Ranald and Alec as George MacDonald in boyhood, you will know what atmosphere he lived in, what were the conditions and outward circumstances of his life, and what were the influences that formed his character.”
- Sir Edward Troup, MacDonald’s son-in-law

 

213 pages