Life in Glenwarlock is sweet for young Cosmo, with a castle to call his own, and a noble laird for his father. But when poverty bites, and a grasping neighbour plots their ruin, must the family sell all to survive? Or can a ghostly riddle free them, and save their ancestral home?

The second of MacDonald’s novels to be translated, in unabridged form, by his countryman David Jack, Castle Warlock is the author’s paean to his homeland, written after his family’s move to Italy. It is also, like Robert Falconer, at heart a tale of fatherhood: but whereas Robert’s youth was defined by its absence, Cosmo’s is marked by its joyous, life-giving presence. Among this story’s highlights are its rootedness to the soil, its celebration of the peasant classes, and its perfect interweaving of homeliness and horror.

Castle Warlock was originally published in 1881, in between two other Scottish novels: Sir Gibbie and its sequel Donal Grant.

Extensive Scots dialogue

“To trust in spite of the look of being forgotten; to keep crying out into the vast whence comes no voice, and where seems no hearing...to desire nothing but what comes meant for us from [God’s] hand; to wait patiently, willing to die of hunger, fearing only lest faith should fail—such is the victory that overcometh the world, such is faith indeed.”

— George MacDonald, from Castle Warlock

Recommended Editions and Adaptations

Scots-English Edition: full original text, plus for all passages in the Scots tongue, the original Scots is shown with a side-by-side translation into English by David Jack

The Cullen Collection Edition (abridged): paperback and kindle

Castle Warlock, Edited and Abridged by David Jack

Hardcover Editions (unabridged):

From WisePath Books
From Johannesen Printing & Publishing