THE GOLDEN KEY. Written by George MacDonald, with illustrations by Charles van Sandwyk. by MACDONALD, George. VAN SANDWYK, Charles [Illustrator] - 2015.

No Place [Olympia, WA]: Pegana Press, 2015.. First Printing of This Edition. . Hardcover. Fine. First Printing of this New Edition, the first edition to bear illustrations by Charles van Sandwyk. Octavo. Hand-printed with hand-set Goudy and Civilite types on a Vandercook SP 15 press on Hanhnemuhle and Canson papers; handbound in tan cloth with printed paper title label on spine, decorative Florentine endpapers, pictorial label mounted on front panel. Colour frontispiece and interior pen and ink illustrations by Charles van Sandwyk. Each frontispiece has been hand signed by Charles and is Giclee printed for superb colour rendition and archival art quality. Printed in sections of French and German paper with hues of rose, custard, soft green, and blue. Edition strictly limited to 80 hand-numbered copies. Included with each book, is a letterpress print of 'The Old Man Of The Sea' by van Sandwyk, suitable for framing.



THE GOLDEN KEY is a fairy tale, originally published in the collection 'DEALINGS WITH THE FAIRIES' (1867). It is particularly noted for the intensity of the suggestive imagery, which implies a spiritual meaning to the story without providing a transparent allegory for the events in it. "This story is filled with a lambent, glowing air of its own. It is dreamy and mystical, with a vague, dim, wondering beauty, and perhaps for these reasons it reminds me more of MacDonald's two great haunting dream romances, LILITH and PHANTASTES" - from Lin Carter's introduction to the story in EVENOR, one of the volumes in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series.