Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women was the first work of fiction by MacDonald. Phantastes exerted a strong influence on fantasy authors of later generations: for example, C. S. Lewis claimed that his imagination had been baptized by reading it. The story concerns a young man, Anodos, who is pulled into a dreamlike world and there hunts for his ideal of female beauty, embodied by the Marble Lady. Anodos lives through many adventures and temptations while in the other world, until he is finally ready to give up his ideals, and only then does he learn the truth about what he has been searching for.
