George MacDonald was born in Huntly, Aberdeenshire in 1824. The MacDonalds were a prominent family in the community both in terms of business and with the religious community. The family was a member of the Missionar Kirk, an extreme version of the established church, which MacDonald was to reject. In his writing, he asserts that there is a God and that it is through art and the imagination that we are closest to Him. This contradicts the Calvinist disapproval of art as fanciful and iconoclastic.

MacDonald went to university in Aberdeen where he studied Moral Philosophy and Sciences under some of the leading thinkers of the age, an experience which was to colour his liberal and heterodox thinking. He considered becoming a chemist but instead chose to follow another path, training as a Congregational Minister at Highbury College. He was forced to resign from his first position at Arundel in 1853 after being accused of heresy. Believing in divine presence but not divine providence, he asserted that everyone was capable of redemption.

Prevented from preaching from a ministerial pulpit, MacDonald turned to writing. His first publication was a religious poem, Within and Without (1855) which was followed by Phantastes (1858), one of the defining works of his career. Fantasy works for both adults and children are to be found throughout his career but he turned to writing novels in order to provide for his large family. He wrote more than fifty books over five decades. During his lifetime, he was best known as a novelist but in modern times it is his works for children and his fantasy literature which are more commonly known and which remain in print.

Despite the turnover and success of his novels, he was often unable to support his family. He relied heavily on the charity of his friends such as Lady Byron, who acted as his patron until her death in 1860, and John Ruskin, whose donations would often be the only source of income to the MacDonalds.

In the 1870s MacDonald was invited to give a lecture tour across America. Speaking at a number of locations to huge audiences, he was received warmly by writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and was even offered a well paid ministerial position. Despite this, he chose to return to his large and continually expanding family in England. However, the ill health which had dogged him from childhood, forced him to relocate every year to warmer climates in Europe.

He died in Ashtead, Surrey, in 1905. A memorial to him has been erected in Drumblade Churchyard, Aberdeenshire.