A Rough Shaking

The 19th-century Scottish author delivers a novel of a homeless orphan who finds peace in the company of animals and his own innate goodness.

One of George MacDonald’s realistic novels, A Rough Shaking takes its title from a devastating earthquake that hit along the Italian coast in February of 1887. Though not written in the classic mold of a children’s story, like MacDonald’s Ranald Bannerman’s Boyhood and Gutta Percha Willie, it tells the story of Clare Skymer’s growing up. Orphaned by an earthquake and though seemingly unaware of God, he is a child imbued with goodness and with an unusual empathy for animals. As he wanders the world and is faced with decisions that test his selflessness and compassion, he matures into a man of character and grace. As MacDonald writes, “His soul was in a better home than a sky full of angels, a home better than the dome itself of all the angels, for his home was his father’s heart.”