Citation: George MacDonald, Orts (London: Sampson Low, 1882).

Enlarged edition: George MacDonald, A Dish of Orts (London: Sampson Low, 1893).

Other edition: London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1895. Reprint Whitethorn, California: Johannesen, 2009.

Includes “The Imagination: Its Functions and Its Culture.”

Description: “Orts” refers to scraps of food, hardly suitable for a full meal. While MacDonald offered the poems of Sidney as A Cabinet of Gems, he described his own essays as A Dish of Orts, stating that they were “but fragmentary presentments of larger meditation.” But he hastened to explain that fragmentary did not mean worthless: “It could hardly, however, be imagined that I associate the idea of worthlessness with the work contained in it. No one would insult his readers by offering them what he counted valueless scraps, and telling them they were such.” Readers of A Dish of Orts then and now regard these fragments as essays of the highest value on literature and the imagination.

Contains:

  • “The Imagination: Its Functions and Its Culture.” Text.
  • “A Sketch of Individual Development.” Text.
  • “The History and Heroes of Medicine.”
  • “Wordsworth’s Poetry.”
  • “The Fantastic Imagination.” Text.

Bulloch (1925):

Orts. By George MacDonald, LL.D. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1882. 8vo, pp. viii + 310.

Preface (pp. v-vi) signed G. M. D. (sic).

This book, which was reviewed in the Spectator (April 2, 1883, Ivi., 518-520), with a protest against the title, consists of thirteen essays, mostly reprinted from various sources, as follows : –

  1. ” The Imagination, its functions and culture, ” contributed anonymously to the British Quarterly Review (July, 1867, xlvi . , 45-70, and reprinted in the Eclectic Mag. , New York (lxi. , 257) , Dr. Greville MacDonald thinks this essay falls short of his father’s references to the subject elsewhere.
  2. ” A sketch of individual development,” in which MacDonald says that his ” earliest definable memory ” was the funeral of the 4th Duke of Gordon, which occurred when he was two and a half. The article appeared, signed in full , in the British Quarterly Review (Jan. , 1882), 1xxv. , 28-48.
  3. ” St. George’s day, 1564, ” dealing with Shakespere, as MacDonald always spelt the name: dated 1864.
  4. ” The Art of Shakespere, as revealed by himself ,” 1863 .
  5. ” The Elder Hamlet, ” 1875. This was a sort of preliminary to his study of Hamlet, 1885. It appeared in Macmillan’s Magazine (Aug., 1876, xxxiv. , 351-355).
  6. ” On polish ” : from Good Words ( Sept. , 1865, vi. , 677-680) .
  7. ” Browning’s ‘ Christmas Eve ‘ ” : reprinted from the Monthly Christian Spectator, London (May, 1853, iii. , 261-273) signed “G. M. D.” . MacDonald says (Greville MacDonald’s ” George MacDonald,” p. 185 ) that the editor ” begged leave to omit the most important portion,” apparently that which praised Unitarianism. The article was reprinted almost verbatim and fully signed in the Day of Rest (Jan. 18 and 25, 1873) , i. , 34-36, 55-56 .
  8. ” Essays on some forms of literature ” : a review of the book of the same title by Thomas Toke Lynch ( 1818-1871), the hymn writer, a great friend and admirer of MacDonald, who in 1859 took Lynch’s house, Tudor Lodge, in Regent’s Park, as described in Dr. Greville MacDonald’s life ( pp. 311-312 ).
  9. ” The History and heroes of [the art ] of medicine,” an appreciation of a book of the same name by Dr. John Rutherfurd Russell ( born Edinburgh, 1816: died 1867), who was a homœopathist. MacDonald dedicated ” Adela Cathcart ” to him in 1864. A longsketch of Russell, who is not mentioned in Dr. Greville’s life, appeared in the British Journal of Homœopathy ( April, 1867) , and was reissued as a pamphlet.
  10. “Wordsworth’s poetry,” a lecture delivered extempore at Manchester.
  11. “Shelley ” ; reprinted from the article signed G. M. D. in the 8th edition ( 1860) of the ” Encyclopædia Britannica ” ( xx . , 100-104).
  12. ” A Sermon, ” on Phil., iii. 15-16, delivered in the Unitarian Chapel, Essex St., London, W.C., 1879. It was first printed in the Unitarian Review , Boston (Sept. , 1881, xvi., 254-265) , MacDonald stating in a footnote, from Bordighera, July 18, 1881 : ” It is the only sermon I have written to preach for thirty years. I am pleased to see the Revised New Testament take the same reading.”
  13. ” True Christian ministering,” a sermon on Matt. xx. 25-28, the title of which ought to have been ” True Christian greatness , ” being taken from the religious paper which reprinted it.
  • 1883. Published under the title ” The Imagination and other essays, ” by D. Lothrop & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 8vo, pp. 318. Introduction by A. P. Peabody, Cambridge, Mass; who was first introduced to MacDonald’s work by Rev. Dr. Gannett. The latter said he found more in MacDonald and ” got more from him than in any other author whose name belongs to the current literature of the day”.
  • (1885.) Reissued by Lothrop, Boston: 12mo. 1893. Published as ” A Dish of orts, chiefly papers on the imagination and on Shakespere ; enlarged edition, ” by Sampson Low, Marston & Co. , 8vo, pp. viii + 322 + frontispiece, portrait of MacDonald in heliogravure from a photograph by Elliott & Fry. Preface (pp. v- vi) by MacDonald, dated Edenbridge, Kent, Aug. 1, 1893. A fourteenth essay was added entitled ” The Fantastic imagination ” which was a reprint of the essay prefaced to Putnam’s edition of ” The Light Princess, ” New York, 1893.
  • 1905. Published by Newnes : 8vo, pp. 330.
  • 1908. Published from the Newnes plates, by Edwin Dalton.

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