Greville MacDonald

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Greville MacDonald (Bolton, 1856-1944), was the son of influential fantasy writer George MacDonald.

Greville trained as a medical doctor, and rose to become a noted nose specialist in Harley St., and President of the British Medical Association's nose division. He retired from medical practice in 1904. He published many treatise on medical care for the nose.

He wrote and published many fantasy and fairy-story novels for children. He was also a thinker and scholar who published books such as The Religious Sense and the Scientific Aspect, The Tree in The Midst, and The Sanity of William Blake. He was editor of a literary journal called The Vineyard.

He helped keep his father's memory alive by arranging the publication of new editions of his works, and by publishing the painstakingly-researched biography George MacDonald and his Wife (1924).

He married Phoebe Winn in 1888.

He is now probably best known for having been photographed by Lewis Carroll, and for having been - along with his three sisters - one of the prime encouragers of the book publication of Alice in Wonderland. Carroll had been uncertain as to its potential for publication, until he tried the manuscript with the MacDonald children and had an enthusiastic reception.