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Written by George MacDonald - Audio book performed by Ian Whitcomb - Unabridged Fiction - 5 COMPACT DISCS - 6 hours, 1 minute

Publisher, Tantor Media (1996)

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In this sequel to The Princess and the Goblin, Curdie has returned to his life as a miner and has dismissed the supernatural happenings of the past, believing them to have been a dream. When Curdie callously wounds a pigeon, his conscience leads him to Princess Irene's mystical great-great-grandmother for help. She has him plunge his hands into a pile of rose petals that burns like fire. Extraordinarily, this grants him the power to see what kind of "animal" a person is at heart.

She then sends him on a quest, accompanied by a peculiar doglike creature named Lina, who was once a human. However, Curdie must resolve his own skepticism before he can use the powers granted to him to defeat the evil that is threatening the future of the kingdom.

About the Author: George MacDonald was a prolific authors of both children's and adult books, including such classics as At The Back Of The North Wind, The Princess & the Goblin, Lilith, and Phantastes. His works were the inspiration for later writers including G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. The consummate Scotsman was born December 10, 1824, in Huntly, Aberdeenshire. He was ordained as a Congregationalist minister in 1845, and became pastor at Arundel. This appointment did not last long, as his beliefs conflicted with his church and parishioners. The quarrel originated with his unorthodox views regarding who or what goes to purgatory and heaven.

In 1852 he married Louisa Powell, with whom he had six sons and five daughters. He was forced to resign from his church in 1853, and after a brief sojourn in Algiers for the sake of his health, became a free-lance preacher, lecturer and writer. His literary breakthrough came in 1855 with the publication of a narrative poem Within and Without. In the next two decades he gained increasing fame and success with his children's books, but was never able to earn enough to support his family. Luckily in 1877 he was granted a pension at the request of Queen Victoria.

After one of his daughters went to Bordighera Italy for her health, the MacDonalds fell in love with the area. They built a house there and spent most of each year in Italy until the death of Mrs. MacDonald in 1902. George died on September 21, 1905 in Scotland. Per his request he was buried beside his wife in Bordighera.