'No speech at my command will fit the forms in my mind': Shaping the Spiritual through Writing and Typing in George MacDonald’s Lilith Manuscripts
Résumé
In “Lilith B” (1893), the most extensively rewritten draft of George MacDonald’s fantasy novel Lilith (1895), puzzling triangular-shaped insertions, some handwritten and some typed, although not retained in the later versions of the text, allow for a better understanding of the creative process and show how the material crafting of the manuscript, through collage and combination techniques, played a part in the invention of fantasy. The introduction of the typewriter as a new drafting tool in MacDonald’s writing habits, not only for copying but also for revising, corresponds to a shift in the metaphorical and allegorical system which enables the parallel worlds of the novel to function, suggesting that the figure of the pyramidal or the diagonal is at work in the whole of the manuscript to allow the hero to move between worlds and to deliver the symbolic and spiritual message of the novel.