Last month, my classic children's book was 'The Princess and the Goblin', a pioneering fantasy book by George Macdonald, published in 1872 when the genre hadn't coalesced into recognisable form. It's often been cited as the first fantasy novel, which it clearly isn't because it wasn't even the first fantasy novel by George Macdonald, but it may well be the one that set the genre into motion. It's a wonderful book, but one written for a very young audience and, while the plot is wrapped up by the end, it never feels like it's a complete story. This duly followed along in 1883 to end the saga of Princess Irene and the miner boy Curdie.

Irene was nine for most of the first book and Curdie thirteen. Here, they're clearly older and so is the tone. It's still a book for children, but, while its predecessor feels like something that we might read aloud to younger children, this one feels like something that we might hand to them in later years of childhood to read themselves after they've already grown up somewhat. It's much deeper in meaning, more advanced thematically and far more mature. There's lots of kindly philosophy, a smattering of which has religious undertones. This book isn't preachy per se but it's full of lessons and tests and absolutely talks about what it means to be good in a religious sense.

After the events of the first book, the Princess returns with her father, the King, to his palace in a faraway city called Gwyntystorm, the capital of his kingdom. Curdie is invited to join them, having already saved Irene once, but he chooses to remain at home with his parents instead, a choice we are led to believe deepens his character and sets him more firmly onto a path that has yet to show up. As the years pass, he settles back into the routine of his life, but that ends at the moment he shoots a pigeon for pleasure rather than food. Suddenly, he's jolted back into a bigger picture and he runs for the castle to visit Irene's great-great-grandmother, who he previously doubted existed. Certainly, when Irene took him to see her, he couldn't. To him, Irene appeared to be talking to the air.

This time he sees her, albeit in a very different form, and she metaphorically leads him back onto the right path. The pigeon heals and he must go on a quest, though she won't provide much in the way of detail to help him understand what it might be. However, she has him put his hands into her fire of roses, which he does, passing yet another unanticipated test, gaining a gift in the process. Now, when he clasps the hand of another person in his, he'll be able to know inherently who they are on the inside, whether they're a good person or a beastly one. She also has a gift for his dad, an emerald that will change colour at the point that Curdie needs him.

Finally, there's Lina, who's a very strange companion indeed. She's an animal, a weird monstrosity but one that's also lovely and fiercely loyal. Sure, she has a short body like a dog but long legs like an elephant, a tail twice as long as it should be and a head that's somewhere between a snake and a polar bear. However, when the brave Curdie takes her paw in his hand, he sees her as an innocent child. She's clearly a creature of good, not of evil.

As Curdie's quest becomes more clear, he leads an army of other monstrosities, a whole bestiary of nonsense creatures, including one memorable giant snake that constantly struggles to walk on two tiny legs. It's telling that while these all seem to be misshapen and mutated animals, they're the good guys. Many of the human beings we're yet to meet are the true beasts in the story. Then again, nothing is what it seems in a George Macdonald story.

For a start, neither of these books are what they seem. The first one, 'The Princess and the Goblin' wasn't really about a princess and a goblin at all; it was about a princess and Curdie, in turn about one and then the other, only occasionally about both at once. This sequel, however, 'The Princess and Curdie', isn't really about a princess at all, though it is about Curdie and his quest, so much so that we actually start to wonder when Princess Irene is even going to show up. Spoiler: in my 1966 Puffin edition, it's on page 128 of 221. That's over halfway through and, while she does remain in the story after that, it's always Curdie's book, even then.

It doesn't take a lot of effort to figure out what Curdie's quest is, once he gets to Gwyntystorm. It isn't the place he expects from a capital city ruled over by a popular king, one that we must recall Curdie has actually met. He's certainly never given us reason not to like him too, but the people in the city don't seem to think much of anyone in the palace. And, after a few untoward adventures, when Curdie finds his way into the palace itself, he finds the king bedridden, dying from a malady that doesn't seem to be curable, and the princess one of the few sympathetic voices there. And so Curdie sets out to fix the king, the palace and the city, all on his own, or at least without any real human accomplices. The uglies serve as his army and they do a bang up job of it.

In some ways, I liked this book more than its predecessor. It feels more substantial from the very outset and Macdonald's prose is often gorgeous poetry. I haven't felt the urge to read sections of a book out loud to myself since Ursula Le Guin's 'A Wizard of Earthsea'. Sure, some of it does bog down a little, especially when it gets overly philosophical, but parts of it are scintillating reading and no lover of language will be able to put this book down during them. Even with all the strange obfuscation that the elder Irene goes through in order to be mysterious, it's also a novel with far more obvious direction. It has a single plot and we always feel that we're progressing through it, rather than wondering, as we sometimes did in the first book, just where Macdonald was taking us.

However, in some ways, I didn't like it as much. It often felt like Macdonald was trying to teach us lessons as much as he was trying to entertain us and, while I have no problem seeing messages in children's literature, it got a little onerous at times. I could never be sure quite how it all added up either. Curdie is one man, well, one boy, and he finds himself with an insanely vast task, but it's as if a combination of dedication and being on the right side is all it takes him to win. I'm not sure I'd agree the numbers back him up enough to make that viable. But hey, there's magic at play here, so I can't complain too much. I'm not a fan of the ending either and I'm far from alone. It seems a majority of readers see that as problematic, even if there's an unfortunate truth in it.

So it's a better book but it's a worse book. At the end of the day, it's a second book and to a highly important first, so I'm happy that I sought it out. And second, it reminds me that I have one further detail to add before I wrap, and that's that there's an instance here in 1888 that entered popular culture much later in time, in 1937, through a book that arguably couldn't exist without this pair of George Macdonald titles paving the way. That book is 'The Hobbit' and I'm talking about "second breakfast". Here, Curdie is delayed at one point because a magistrate is eating his "second and more important breakfast". Apparently this is a real thing, especially in parts of Germany, Poland and eastern Europe, roughly equivalent to the English elevenses, but named "second breakfast". I seem to be learning a lot this month! ~~ Hal C F Astell

For more titles by George MacDonald click here