The most significant events in the history of books on the 10th of December
1824: George MacDonald is born. His fantasy novels are important precursors to the more famous work of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, both of whom knew his novels, which include Lilith (1895), a Christian fantasy novel about a man who steps through a portal into another world. MacDonald’s two-word poem ‘The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs’ – probably the shortest poem in the entire canon of Victorian poetry – is discussed in our article about how to close-read a poem.