''Mary Marston'' is a novel by

George MacDonald George MacDonald (10 December 1824 – 18 September 1905) was a Scottish author, poet and Christian Congregational minister. He was a pioneering figure in the field of modern fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow writer Lewis Carroll. I ...

, written in 1881 and later republished as ''A Daughter's Devotion''. Written at the height of George MacDonald's

literary Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

career, the story centers around the life of a simple merchant's daughter. Mary Marston's unswerving commitment to love

God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...

and others is contrasted with a backdrop of an array of characters and a complex and sometimes mysterious

plot Plot or Plotting may refer to: Art, media and entertainment * Plot (narrative), the story of a piece of fiction Music * ''The Plot'' (album), a 1976 album by jazz trumpeter Enrico Rava * The Plot (band), a band formed in 2003 Other * ''Plot' ...

. It is a story of a woman who loves a man, and teaches him to change. Not out of his

love Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest Interpersonal relationship, interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of ...

for her, but simply because it was the right thing to do. MacDonald allows the

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

s a range from delightful to devious. As such, they were intended to serve as

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the Plan_(drawing), plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a mea ...

s. His message is that all eventually must stand before God.

References

Modern edition

*''A Daughter’s Devotion'', Michael R. Phillips, editor. Minneapolis, Minn. : Bethany House Publishers, c1988.

External links

* 1881 British novels Scottish novels Novels by George MacDonald {{1880s-novel-stub