Stella & Rose's Books featured

Stella and Rose's, as well as being featured in "The Independent" weekend magazine "The Information" on July 9th as one of the top 10 antiquarian booksellers of the UK, selected for their wide choice of titles and award-winning customer service, Rose's - the Hay-on-Wye branch of the ibooknet member will feature in an episode of "Flog it!" later in the year.

"Flog it!" presenter Paul Martin interviewed Maria Goddard of Rose's as part of a special feature on Hay-on-Wye. Rose's stocks around 12,000 rare and out-of-print children's and illustrated books and Paul Martin was particularly taken with their Ladybird Books, some of which he remembered from his childhood.

Not all of us are Rowling!

A recent survey of children's authors shows that one third of them earn less than the national minimum wage of £8,800 per annum and that some of them work for as little as 2p an hour.

The survey was of 117 established author's who replied to a questionnaire from the Society of Authors. Thirty one percent of the sample earned over £20,000 per annum. This is all a long way from the mega earners of the world of children's book - JK Rowling earned over £10m last year, Jacqueline Wilson earned £17m, Philip Pulman £6m, Roald Dahl £19m and Enid Blyton's sales topped £14m - and these figures are for book sales alone.

I suppose the fact that JK Rowling was in a worse situation than many of the surveyed authors - they are all published and poor, Rowling was UNPUBLISHED and poor, might give the established poor some hope.

George Macdonald by
Michael Seton of Alba Books

The north east of Scotland is a rural landscape with a scattering of small towns and villages. It was in a small house in one such small town, Huntly, that George Macdonald was born in 1824 into a solid middle-class family. His grandfather was a banker and his father the nearest thing Huntly had to an industrialist. His family were deeply religious with a stern Calvinistic streak and had ambitions for George to take up a career in the church. Macdonald's early years, though, were not conventional. He went not to the local parish school, but to an independent 'adventure' school, where the discipline could be harsh. With Macdonald suffering long periods of illness his school attendance was patchy. It seems he spent much time riding, swimming, or just day-dreaming. He was, though, academically bright and at the age of sixteen won a bursary to King's College, Aberdeen. He was, reportedly, a 'strikingly colourful, if melancholy' student and his extended university career included a session out cataloguing a castle library where he read deeply in romantic literature and poetry.

On leaving university he still harboured ambitions of becoming a romantic poet, but as a dutiful son entered Highbury Theological College in London. He soon found himself at odds with its Calvinist philosophy and left without taking his degree. He was 'called' though, to minister to the congregation of a small church at Arundel in Sussex. Soon after taking up his post he married his cousin, Louisa Powell. It wasn't long before his congregation found Macdonald's beliefs somewhat at variance to their own. He lasted barely two years before moving on to Manchester where he founded his own church and in 1855 he published his major romantic poem 'Within And Without' whose admirers included Charles Kingsley and Lady Byron.

1857 found the Macdonald family in Hastings, where he wrote 'Phantastes'. In 1859 the Macdonalds, now with six children, moved to London. Macdonald was in great demand as a preacher and lecturer and he became first professor of English Literature at Bedford College. Lewis Carroll became a family friend and tried out 'Alice In Wonderland' on the Macdonald children before deciding to publish. In 1863 Macdonald’s first novel 'David Elginbrod', set here in the north-east of Scotland, was published and from then on he produced a steady stream of novels, fairy tales and sermons. Between 1867 and 1877 the Macdonalds lived at The Retreat, Hammersmith, later owned by William Morris. In that year George’s daughter Mary fell ill and the family, now numbering eleven children, moved to Bordighera on the Ligurian coast of Italy, where they built a large house. Macdonald spent the winters in Italy writing and the summers lecturing and touring in Britain. After the publication of 'Lilith' in 1895 his health began to deteriorate. In 1898 he suffered a stroke and from then on scarcely spoke a word until his death in 1905. In this year (2005), the centenary of his death, many special events have been organized: an indication of his enduring popularity.

Macdonald is most popularly known as a children's writer, the author of books like 'The Princess and the Goblin', 'The Princess and Curdie' and 'At The Back Of The North Wind', but his adult fantasy novels 'Phantastes' and 'Lilith' established a new kind of writing in English. His work influenced writers like C.S. Lewis, W.H. Auden, G.K. Chesterton and T.S. Eliot.

Here in the north-east of Scotland his enduring popularity rests on his Scottish novels, all of which are set locally. 'Alec Forbes of Howglen’ (1865) and 'Robert Falconer' (1868), both draw largely on Macdonald's own youth, whilst 'Malcolm' (1875) and 'The Marquis of Lossie' (1877) are set to the north of Huntly in the fishing town of Cullen. Even his children's books 'The Princess and the Goblin' and 'The Princess and Curdie' take place in a realm of bygone years in a distinctly Scottish landscape.

The local library in Huntly has a collection of his books and some manuscripts. There is also a flourishing George Macdonald Society and, in the competition for tourist numbers, a George Macdonald trail around his home town. Macdonald’s works are still very collectable especially the very scarce three-deckers. Judging by the well-used condition of most of the copies of his works that I’ve come across he is also still read as well as being collected.