George MacDonald

At the Back of the North Wind

First published
1871 (December 1870)
Length
88,000 words, about 6 hours' reading

Begin reading

Little Diamond, a London coachman’s son, is carried away at night by the North Wind.

Contents

  1. Chapter I. The Hay-Loft
  2. Chapter II. The Lawn
  3. Chapter III. Old Diamond
  4. Chapter IV. North Wind
  5. Chapter V. The Summer-House
  6. Chapter VI. Out in the Storm
  7. Chapter VII. The Cathedral
  8. Chapter VIII. The East Window
  9. Chapter IX. How Diamond Got to the Back of the North Wind
  10. Chapter X. At the Back of the North Wind
  11. Chapter XI. How Diamond Got Home Again
  12. Chapter XII. Who Met Diamond at Sandwich
  13. Chapter XIII. The Seaside
  14. Chapter XIV. Old Diamond
  15. Chapter XV. The Mews
  16. Chapter XVI. Diamond Makes a Beginning
  17. Chapter XVII. Diamond Goes on
  18. Chapter XVIII. The Drunken Cabman
  19. Chapter XIX. Diamond's Friends
  20. Chapter XX. Diamond Learns to Read
  21. Chapter XXI. Sal's Nanny
  22. Chapter XXII. Mr. Raymond's Riddle
  23. Chapter XXIII. The Early Bird
  24. Chapter XXIV. Another Early Bird
  25. Chapter XXV. Diamond's Dream
  26. Chapter XXVI. Diamond Takes a Fare the Wrong Way Right
  27. Chapter XXVII. The Children's Hospital
  28. Chapter XXVIII. Little Daylight
  29. Chapter XXIX. Ruby
  30. Chapter XXX. Nanny's Dream
  31. Chapter XXXI. The North Wind Doth Blow
  32. Chapter XXXII. Diamond and Ruby
  33. Chapter XXXIII. The Prospect Brightens
  34. Chapter XXXIV. In the Country
  35. Chapter XXXV. I Make Diamond's Acquaintance
  36. Chapter XXXVI. Diamond Questions North Wind
  37. Chapter XXXVII. Once More
  38. Chapter XXXVIII. At the Back of the North Wind

About this digital edition

How the text was made, and the printer's errors corrected

The text is Project Gutenberg’s transcription (ebook #225), from the public-domain printed edition, made by volunteers.

For this site it was converted to Markdown: Project Gutenberg’s header and licence, the printed page numbers, and the printed table of contents were removed, and the headings were regularised so the book divides into chapters. The words of the text are as Project Gutenberg gives them.

Arthur Hughes’s illustrations come from a scan of the 1911 Blackie edition at the Internet Archive (atbackofnorthwin00macd2), which reprints the black-and-white drawings he made for the first edition of 1871. Its coloured plates, by a later artist, are left out.