Young Mr. Vane, newly returned to the family estate after his father died, was reading in the library when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure exit a door in the library and leave the room. He asked the butler, who had been with the family a long time, and he said that the house was haunted, and that one of his ancestors, a Mr. Upward, had interacted with it and had been influenced down an unhealthy path. Nonetheless, Mr. Vane (“I”, since it is told in first person) watched for it. The next time he saw it, he ran after it, all the way up to the attic, which he had not even known about. It ran into a mirror and he followed. He seemed to have gone into another world, because there was nothing behind him. In front of him was a raven, which suggested something similar to him, and said cryptic things to him like that he was not at home and therefore could not return. The conversation ended with Vane walking after the raven and finding himself back in the attic.

Shortly afterwards the raven returned in the rain. Vane was determined not to leave his house, but the raven persuaded him to go into the garden, at least. However, he found that he had somehow re-enetered that world, which rather upset him. The raven said invited him to his house, and said that he was sexton of a cemetery. Upon arriving, the raven’s wife gave him bread and wine, and they showed him around the cemetery. They insisted that he needed to “sleep” (although Mr. Raven had answered his wife’s question that he was not likely to sleep that day), but Vane had no intention of dying and rejected their offer. He rushed out of the cemetery, and upon closing the door, found himself back in his house.

Vane soon found a letter from his father recounting a similar tale that he had experienced, and Vane went back up to the attic, adjusted the two mirrors at noon, and went back to that world. He found Mr. Raven, who told him that he had seen his father sleeping/dead last night, until he grew younger. His ancestor Mr. Upward had risen some time ago. He said he would take them up on their offer, but Raven said that his wife was not expecting him, and that his time for sleep had not come. And since Vane had come at his own, rather than at any instigation of Raven’s, it was up to him to find his way home even though he could not. But the Raven did unearth a red worm, as he was wont to do, and threw it into the air. Usually these became butterflies, but this one became a firefly and flew towards him, but when he tried to capture it in his hands it became a book again.

At night it became very cold. When the moon’s light was hidden behind a summit of the hills he was making for, he found that horrible monsters assailed him, and he fled in terror, with the moon reappearing just as they caught up to him and he passed a particular rock at the base. He slept, and then continued traveling. His way went through the Evil Wood, where people fought each other until the sun came up. That day he climbed in an out of river-beds, eventually finding a bunch of small children who gave him a small fruit, which he ate gladly, and they rejoiced and proclaimed him a good giant. One boy gave him a big fruit, but it was bitter and he threw it away in disgust, and they rejoiced again. The oldest, Lona, explained (over time) that they found new babies in the wood, and that any children who grew selfish started to like the big fruits, and then became giants and forgot all about being Little People—indeed, they denied that the Little People existed. But at present, they suddenly told him to run because a giant was coming and they scattered. Vane did not, and the giant captured him as a slave. For many days the he had to work for them, but the children came and fed him when the giants were gone, and generally loved him quite all over, so that he was sometimes quite covered with them. He eventually escaped. For a while he lived with them happily, but came to see that if their good giant was going to the do the best for them, he must understand their world better. Also the giant who had captured him found him again and beat him, but although the children drive him off by throw big apples at him, they heard him say that he thought Vane must be a wizard and would have to be “knocked”. The children said he needed to leave, and so he did.

That night he met a woman who had cats, and although the children had warned him about the evil Cat Lady, her voice seemed nice, so he trusted her and went to her house. It seemed to him that he heard someone in pain but refusing to repent. (Since Mr. Vane’s wife had asked him to give Mara’s kitten something, we can infer that this is Mara.) In the morning she gave him bread and wine, but he never saw her face, because she wrapped her head in wrappings. She said that he could not stay more than one night as a guest, and so he continued towards the city that the children told him about.

He slept in a ruined castle in a woods. In the middle of the night he was woken up by ghosts dancing. They seemed to be full people, except for their heads, which were naked skulls. They ignored him, and even passed through him, but a living woman showed up at the door, whereupon they vanished and she left. When he woke up the next morning, he saw outside the castle two skeletons, apparently married. The husband treated his wife like a slave, and she had had enough; she broke one of his bones and left him. After this he saw Mr. Raven briefly, who advised him in this world never to trust someone who had once betrayed his trust.

Vane continued, and was suffering greatly from loneliness, when he found a beautiful woman on the ground who seemed dead, but had not decayed. Hoping that he could revive her—which he considered his duty, but came mostly because he hoped she would help his loneliness—he carried her until he found a river. This river was warm, so he found a cave, and made a chair to suspend her in the warm water, hoping the warmth would seep into her cold body. After many days she did revive, but she turned out not to be a nice person. She upbraided him for reviving her, talked to him scornfully, and left. Despite this, he followed her, hoping to ease his loneliness.

He met a woman who told him about the princess of the city. Long ago she had come and taught the inhabitants how to mine gems and seek wealth. She took the water (hence it was a desert, with lots of dry stream beds) and held it in her hands. She had a prophecy that her child would cause her death, so she killed any baby that was born that she could get her hands on. The woman was carrying a baby and trying to escape with to put it in the woods where the Little Lovers would find it. She even had bashed a rock against the princess’ leopard’s foot that was trying to bite the baby, which would cause it to become stupid. A suspicion was forming in his mind that the princess and the leopard were rather related. He still went to the city, where he was betrayed by a woman with a baby whom he offered to protect against the leopard. He also found that there were two leopards, one of which was white and seemed to protect him. He was also betrayed by the princess, who was the woman he had revived. He was eventually betrayed by the princess, ending up on his back in the fountain on his estate, with the raven croaking, “told you so!”

The raven upbraided Vane. He had not helped the children, he said. Vane replied that he had not known how, but Raven said that was hardly an excuse. Furthermore, he modeled being afraid of the giants, when he could have whipped them with a branch from their own tree and enslaved them, which would at least be useful to them. That he did not know their lack of courage was no excuse for not having his own! Finally, although he could see they had not grown because of lack of water, it had not occurred to him to dig a well, despite hearing water under the ground. He had done no good for them, and Vane could see that he was right.

Mr. Raven, in human form, discovered that the princess had followed them in the form of a Persian cat. He took a book out of the door of the library and read passages from it, which revealed the cat, which he grabbed and threw into the doorway. He explained to Vane that Lilith was his first wife, that God had given him an angel for a wife, but after she had borne one child she insisted that he worship her, because she had created a person. When he would not, she left him. She sought power, and wanted to kill her child—all children—since she thought that children diminish the parents. God had given him another wife, Eve, who had plunged the world into ruin, although she and he had repented, and she had grown more beautiful than any woman. Eve had wanted to raise his first daughter as her own, but they were not ready, and God hid the daughter, where she became mother to the babies in the wood. Lilith escaped the door, and in leopard form, ran through the mirrors in the attic as Raven and Vane went through it. She raced off towards to the Little Lovers.

Before Lilith escaped, Raven had said that Vane needed to sleep at his house, and he had agreed. Raven called his horse, so Vane could travel faster, but seeing that the leopard had gone after the children, he said that it was more important to help them. Raven said he could not help them until he slept, and that Mara, who was the white leopard would take care of them. Vane said that in the last combat it was hardly clear that the white leopard was the stronger, although she had won that time. So Vane disobeyed Raven and galloped off to the children.

He trained the children for war. First they drove out the giants, then he trained them further to fight the city. He also started falling in love with Lona, who by this time was close to womanhood. When they passed through the wood, they found that the skeleton and his skeletal wife had become nice with each other. Eventually they reached the city, and even captured Lilith, who was obsessed with seeing how beautiful she was. Lona, who Vane had told was the child of the princess, ran to her and hugged her, but Lilith picked her up and dashed her to the floor, killing her. Then the princess withered up like she had been in the forest. They left the city and took her to Mara’s house. Mara put the little ones to bed, and then she dealt with Lilith. Lilith refused to repent, and refused to repent, and she wanted to die. Each time, she suffered more of the consequences of her choice, until at last Mara had no choice and God cast her into the outer darkness (internally, not literally). Then at last, she realized that she could not die, and furthermore, that the absence of God was more than she had ever experienced before. It broke her, and she repented, but only just. Mara said that she needed to open her hand, but she could not.

They traveled back to Mr. Raven’s/Adam’s house. The children were eager to sleep, and happily found sleeping adults and snuggled up with them. Eve said that Lilith could not sleep until she opened her hand, but she said that she was trying and could not, so requested that he cut it off. So Adam cut it off, and she went to sleep. Two of the children snuggled up with her. Lona also went to sleep (but on a bed-platform by herself). Adam told Vane the he could not sleep until he had taken the hand, traveled to a certain location across the warm river and in the land of the city, and buried below a certain depth. Once he had done this, he could start to see the water returning, and he hurried back to Adam’s house. He was met by Lona, who asked him to lead her to her bed. This he did, but when he asked Raven, Raven said that she had not awakened at all, and that he had not noticed that her eyes were closed. Raven led him to a bed-platform by his father and across from Lona, whose had he held.

He dreamed, and sometimes thought he had awakened, but because of his experience with Lona and because he talked with Adam, who told him he was still sleeping, was not sure if he was really sleeping or not. Eventually he awoke. They children had wakened some time before and left them with kisses. Lona had also wakened, but watched Vane until he woke up. The sun was beginning to come up, and Adam said that the rooster on the clock of the universe, which had waited millions of years to crow, was just about to do it. They traveled for a while, with the children frolicking with the animals. Eventually they reached a city, where an angel at the gates welcomed them home. They passed through it to a mountain with a few steps that disappeared into a white cloud, while to Vane’s mind’s eye it seemed like the throne of the Ancient of Days. He and Lona let go of each other’s hands and climbed. When he entered the cloud, and hand took hold of him, unlocked a golden door, and pushed him gently through. He found himself back in his library, where he knew not whether it was a dream, or whether he is still sleeping in Adam’s cemetery.

Lilith starts off rather slowly, and even though you know it’s a Christian allegory (or whatever you call the not-allegory Lewis thinks The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is), it is unclear where it is going until midway through the middle. Certainly the plot is completely unpredictable, and while a certain amount of unpredictability is good, it limits coherency when the goal is unclear. To be fair, as a not-allegory of the Christian life, that can be pretty true to life, but I do not think it makes a great story. There is no particular reason to go to the city after leaving the Little Lovers, other than it’s the only other thing on the map. Reviving a beautiful woman who looks dead is completely unrelated to getting to the city, and while I’m sure it being a distraction is part of the point, there’s nothing to point to it being a distraction, nor any struggle with what they should do, unlike in The Silver Chair, where the narrator notes their distraction and Puddleglum insists they repeat the signs but is rebuffed. Instead, it moves from episode to episode with no real connection or purpose, but not like The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is specifically set up to be episodic (the islands are obviously unconnected) and a voyage of discovery, but which still does have several arcs (Eustace’s redemption, and increasing otherness as they near the Edge).

However, the last few pages are rivoting, and also illuminating as a source for C.S. Lewis. Throughout the book people make comments about the coming day, with Adam even imploring Lilith to repent, because what will she do when the day comes. Lewis clearly used this in The Great Divorce. Similarly, MacDonald uses a phrase very similar to “Further up and further in!” which is well-quoted from The Last Battle. The descriptions of the afterlife, while not Narnia’s at all, clearly foreshadow it. MacDonald’s universalism clearly influenced Lewis as well, although Lewis was not a universalist (those in Hell are free to come to Heaven, even though very few avail themselves of the option, but only until the sun sets in Hell and rises in Heaven).

Lilith clearly illustrates MacDonald’s universalism. Lilith is one step down from Satan, who seems to be the Shadow character, except that it has no direct power, and seems to only influence Lilith. Effectively, though, Lilith is Satan, but even she is redeemed. (Adam says the Shadow will also be redeemed.) The process of redemption does involve outer darkness, as Jesus describes for those who rebel against God, but the outer darkness is not punishment but an unexpected consequence of her decision to reject God’s path and also a tool to bring her to repentance—she realizes that she cannot die to escape her pain, and since the pain of not being at home in herself and estranged from God is so great, it leaves repentance as the only option.

Lilith is a important work of MacDonald’s thought, and illustrates his universalism elegantly, as a work of fiction it is not very good. MacDonald did essentially invent the fantasy genre for adults, so it is understandable that it is a bit rocky, but if you are looking for a fun read this might not be the best choice. But if you are looking for insight into MacDonald and his thinking, I think it is excellent.