The Flight of the Shadow

An eerie and mysterious gothic romance steeped in family secrets and deception from the Victorian-era author of The Portent and Lilith.

 


MacDonald's second realistic novel written in the first person by a fictional female narrator, The Flight of the Shadow feels somber and ominous almost from its opening pages. It is thus linked with The Portent from early in MacDonald's career, both books similar of length and style. Again MacDonald develops his familiar themes through the character of an orphan, who, without an earthly father, must yet discover the goodness of God's Fatherhood. Belorba Whichcote learns of the divine Fatherhood through the goodness of her uncle Edward, who has raised her on the "old family farm." Both of their lives are complicated when Belorba falls in love with John Day from the neighboring estate of Rising. John's demonic mother, Lady Cairnedge, who holds a secret over the Whichcote family, threatens to destroy them, foreshadowing the character of Lilith, the first draft of whose saga was being written about the same time as Flight of the Shadow's release in 1891. Reconciliation and restoration conquer her evil influence in the end.


 


"MacDonald is best known for his children's fiction and his fantasy-romances; but this is the US debut of an only slightly fantastical minor romance, written just before Lilith—which, in some aspects of plot and character, it anticipates."—Kirkus Reviews