About George MacDonald and The Diary of an Old Soul

I do not know anything about George MacDonald besides that which I have learned from our time's more-or-less-reliable fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_MacDonald

In brief: MacDonald was born in 1824 in Huntly, a small town in northeastern Scotland.  He studied for the ministry and served as a pastor in London and then in Manchester, later working as a lecturer at the University of London.  Granted a pension from the government in 1877, in 1879 he moved with his family to the Italian Riviera due to ill health.  Over the course of twenty years living there he produced most of his writing.  He is most famous for his fairy tales and fantasy novels, although he also wrote realistic fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.

A Book of Strife, in the Form of the Diary of an Old Soul was privately printed in 1880.  In the two years previous to this, MacDonald lost two children—daughter Mary Josephine, in her mid-twenties, and son Maurice, a teenager.

In 1898, MacDonald suffered a stroke and was thenceforward unable to speak.  He died in 1905 in England.  His ashes are buried at the Anglican church in the Italian town where he had lived and worked.

The website of the George MacDonald society also has a great deal of information and links:

http://www.george-macdonald.com/index.html