Phantastes - A Fantasy Novel by George McDonald

Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women is a fantasy novel written by George MacDonald and first published in London in 1858. It was reprinted in paperback by Ballantine Books as the fourteenth under the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in April 1970. The book is approximately 77866 words long.

The story revolves around the character of Anodos ("without goal" or "ascension" in Greek) and draws its inspiration from German Romanticism, particularly Novalis. The novel tells the story of a young man who is drawn into a fantasy world where he is actively seeking a woman who embodies the ideal of beauty, the "Marble Lady". Anodos has several adventures and suffers many temptations, until he is ready to abandon his ideals. The novel embodies many symbolic elements dealing with redemption, sin and ideal love.

Author C. S. Lewis read Phantastes for the first time when he was sixteen. He was later to say « That night my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptized; the rest of me, not unnaturally, took longer. I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for by buying Phantastes »

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