The Princess and the Goblin was published in 1872, during the Victorian era and at the peak of the English mining industry. While other novels of the time used literary realism to examine the class divisions that the Industrial Revolution had given rise to, MacDonald created a fantasy work that explores not only Faith in the Mystical but also very tangible societal concerns. MacDonald’s miners generally keep to themselves and are seen as lesser-than by those of higher status—the royals and those associated with them. Mining was a difficult, dangerous, and vital job in 19th-century England, as demand for coal skyrocketed with industrialization. Curdie and his family are miners who combat the stereotypes associated with this profession at the time; they are courageous, kind, and wily, able to keep the goblins at bay as they work their way into the mountains.

The goblins themselves suggest a more shapeless anxiety about the lower (quite literally, in this case) classes. MacDonald’s goblins were once human; they have been dehumanized through a combination of oppression and their own response to it, which was to sequester themselves underground. They somewhat anticipate the Morlocks of H.