Lilith
is a Romance by George Macdonald that was first published in 1895. The story is narrated by Mr. Vane, a young man who inherits an old country mansion from his deceased parents which seems to be haunted by the ghost of its former librarian. One day Vane follows the "ghost" to a magic mirror in the house that connects to an alternate world inhabited by spirits of the dead, various monsters, a mysterious tribe of children who grow slowly or not at all, and the biblical Adam and Eve. He also finds a city ruled by Lilith, the legendary first wife of Adam who's turned into an immortal child-killing vampire.
The novel is an explication of Macdonald's theology, but also an influential early work of fantasy fiction; its resemblance to C. S. Lewis' Narnia books and Peter Pan will be obvious to modern readers.
This story contains examples of:
- The Ageless: Lilith has been alive for thousands of years, but it is possible for her to die.
- Alien Sky: The looking-glass land that Vane visits has two moons, neither of which looks or behaves like our own moon.
- Animorphism: The librarian can turn into a raven, and Lilith appears sometimes as a cat and once as a bat-like creature.
- Antagonist Title: Lilith murders people important to the protagonist (his true love, Lona), and the story is called Lilith.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: One of the major themes of the book is that the afterlife is not to be feared, because those who go to it voluntarily achieve this. It's strongly implied that *everyone* achieves this eventually, though many people have to go through a painful learning process first.
- Children Are Innocent: The Little Ones are pretty much Incorruptible Pure Pureness except for a few that start to behave selfishly and become "giants" as a result.
- Chosen One: There's a prophecy that Lilith will be overthrown by her own daughter, which Vane gloms onto once he realizes that it's Lona.
- City of Gold: When Vane eventually visits the heavenly city, he sees that the gates and front steps are made of "the prototypes of all my favorite gems on earth" — even more beautiful because they are the spiritual sources of all gems, as it were.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Lona dies in their true love's Vane's arms after being killed by their mother, Lilith.
- Dream Emergency Exit: Vane's way of waking himself from a dream is falling down something. Near the end, as he's sleeping in the House of Death, he rouses himself from a lonely dream by throwing himself into a hole.
- Dulcinea Effect: Vane seems to get this when he runs across an apparently dead female body, which he spends weeks taking care of until she finally comes back to life. Even when she rejects him rudely, he still follows her around.
- Evil Is Deathly Cold: At first it seems to be played straight, but is ultimately subverted.
- Friend to All Living Things: The Little Ones, who live on nothing but fruit, get along well with all the animals.
- Good Is Not Nice: Many of the good characters in Lilith, but especially Mara.
- Great Big Library of Everything: Mentioned. The library in Vane's ancestral house is so big that it's taken over much of the ground floor, and the "librarian" implies that his job of tending the souls of the dead is the same thing on a spiritual level.
- Growing Up Sucks: In the Little Ones' experience, the only people who grow up are the bad ones. Once they meet a "good giant" (Vane), they become more open to the idea of becoming adults.
- The Journey Through Death: Apparently all souls of the dead go through the magical world that Vane visits. Their experience of it will differ depending on the state in which they arrive, however: some immediately go to sleep to until they Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence, while others have to go through trials before they're ready.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Once through the mirror, Vane can't remember his own name. Unlike some other instances of this trope, it's implied that this is because the Magical Land reveals the truth that he never really knew himself.
- Living Shadow: A character who is called simply The Shadow is one of these. He doesn't seem to be any particular person's shadow, but may well be Satan.
- Made a Slave: The "Giants" capture Vane and force him to care for their fruit trees, frequently kicking him along the way. He admits that he doesn't really try to escape because he wants to stay around the Little Ones.
- Magical Land: The unnamed land where Vane travels. While it bears some resemblance to Hades, given that it's inhabited by spirits of the dead, it also bears the hallmarks of an ancient magical land that has living, reproducing people and animals.
- The Man in the Moon: The two moons in the looking-glass land are different from our moon, but they also have "faces" and seem to act like sentient beings. Vane identifies them as female rather than male, though.
- Meaningful Name: "Vane" seems like a pretty obvious comment on the narrator's propensity to see himself as a hero. Mara's name is the Hebrew word for "bitter."
- Never Grew Up: The Little Ones all stay in a state of perpetual childhood. The few of them that do grow up physically remain immature mentally, and become little more than walking appetites.
- Offing the Offspring: Lilith, when she kills her daughter, Lona.
- One Name Only: Everyone in the book, even Vane, who presumably has a first name but we never learn what it is.
- One-Word Title: Antagonist Title, where Lilith has only one name.
- Or Was It a Dream?: After finally going to sleep in the House of Death, Vane goes back and forth between dreaming and waking enough times that he's totally unsure at the end which is real.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Lilith is The Ageless and gains strength from sucking blood, but doesn't resemble a conventional vampire in any other way.
- The Vamp: Lilith. She's evil but also beautiful and seductive, and Vane feels a combination of attraction and repulsion towards her.
- Vampire Hickey: While caring for Lilith (whose identity he doesn't yet know), Vane keeps waking up with bite marks on his body. She blames it on a giant leech.
- Visible to Believers: The Giants not only forget that they were ever Little Ones, they don't even see them, either seeing nothing or mistaking them for animals.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Lilith, who's The Ageless, is actually ticked that Vane didn't allow her to die.
