The Chronicles of Narnia
The seven books
The Chronicles of Narnia have been in continuous publication
since 1954 and have sold over 100 million copies in 41 languages.[1][2] Lewis was awarded the 1956 Carnegie
Medal for The Last Battle, the final book in the Narnia series. The
books were written by Lewis between 1949 and 1954 but were written in neither
the order they were originally published nor in the
chronological order in which they are currently presented.[3] The original illustrator
was Pauline
Baynes and her pen and ink drawings are still
used in publication today. The seven books that make up The Chronicles of
Narnia are presented here in the order in which they were originally
published (see reading order below). Completion dates for
the novels are English (Northern Hemisphere) seasons.
The Lion, the Witch and
the Wardrobe (1950)
Main article: The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe, completed in the winter of 1949[3] and published in 1950, tells the story of four ordinary
children: Peter, Susan,
Edmund,
and Lucy
Pevensie. They discover a wardrobe in
Professor Digory Kirke's
house that leads to the magical
Prince Caspian: The
Return to Narnia (1951)
Main article: Prince
Caspian
Completed
in the autumn of 1949 and published in 1951, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia tells the story of the Pevensie children's second trip to Narnia, during which
they discover that Miraz, uncle of Prince Caspian,
had forced him to flee into the woods and usurped the throne, declaring himself
a king. Once again, the children set out to save Narnia, aided by the Narnians and ultimately by Aslan
to return the throne to the rightful ruler, Prince Caspian.
This is also the last time Susan and Peter are featured until The Last
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
Main article: The Voyage of
the Dawn Treader
Completed
in the winter of 1950 and published in 1952, The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’ returns Edmund and Lucy Pevensie,
along with their priggish cousin, Eustace
Scrubb, to Narnia. Once there, they join
Caspian's voyage to find the seven lords who were banished when Miraz
took over the throne. This perilous journey brings them face to face with many
wonders and dangers as they sail toward Aslan's
country at the end of the world.
Main article: The Silver Chair
Completed
in the spring of 1951 and published in 1953, The
Silver Chair is the second book (chronologically) without the Pevensie children. In their place, Aslan
calls Eustace back to Narnia together with his classmate Jill Pole.
There they are given four signs to find Prince Rilian,
Caspian's son, who had been kidnapped ten years earlier. Eustace and Jill, with
the help of Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle and many others, face great
danger before finding Rilian, who has lost his memory
due to enchantment by a silver chair.
Main article: The Horse and His Boy
Completed
in the spring of 1950 and published in 1954, The Horse and His Boy is
the first of the books that does not follow the previous one sequentially. The
novel takes place during the reign of the Pevensies
in Narnia, an era which begins and ends in the last chapter of The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe. The story is about Bree, a talking horse, and a young boy named Shasta.
Both of the main characters have been held in bondage in Calormen,
a country to the south of Narnia. By chance, they meet each other and plan
their return to Narnia and freedom. On their journey they discover that the Calormenes are about to invade Archenland, and they plan
to arrive there first to alert the King.
Main article: The Magician's Nephew
Completed
in the winter of 1954 and published in 1955, the prequel The
Magician's Nephew brings the reader back to the very beginning of Narnia
where we learn how Aslan created the world and how
evil first entered it. Digory Kirke
and his friend Polly Plummer stumble into Narnia by experimenting with magic
rings that Digory's uncle made. Many long-standing
questions about Narnia are answered in the adventure that follows.
Main article: The Last Battle
Completed
in the spring of 1953 and published in 1956, The Last Battle chronicles
the end of the world of Narnia. Jill and Eustace return to save Narnia from Shift,
an ape, who tricks Puzzle, a donkey, into impersonating the lion Aslan.
Fans of the
series often have strong opinions over the correct ordering of the books. When the
books were originally published, they were not numbered. The first American
publisher, Macmillan, put numbers on the books in the
order in which they were published. When HarperCollins
took over the series in 1994, the books were renumbered using the internal
chronological order, as suggested by Lewis' stepson, Douglas
Gresham. Because of this edition some readers think that the chronological
order is the order in which C. S. Lewis wrote them.
|
Publication order |
Chronological order |
To make the
case for his suggested order,
I think I agree with your order [i.e. chronological] for reading the books
more than with your mother's. The series was not planned beforehand as she
thinks. When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any
more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn't think there
would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it
would be the last, but I found I was wrong. So perhaps it does not matter very
much in which order anyone read them. I’m not even sure that all the others
were written in the same order in which they were published.[4]
In the
Harper Collins adult editions of the books (2005), the publisher asserts Lewis'
preference for the numbering they adopted in a notice on the copyright page:
Although The Magician's Nephew was written several years after C. S. Lewis first began The Chronicles
of Narnia, he wanted it to be read as the first book in the series.
HarperCollins is happy to present these books in the
order which Professor Lewis preferred.
Some fans
of the series who appreciate the original order believe that Lewis was only being
polite to a child, and that he could have changed the order in his lifetime had
he so desired.[5] They maintain that much of the magic of Narnia comes
from the way in which the world is gradually presented in The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe. They believe that the mystery of the wardrobe is narratively a much better introduction than in The
Magician's Nephew — where the word "Narnia" is the fortieth
word in the book. Moreover, they say that it is clear from the texts themselves
that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was intended to be the first
book read, and that The Magician's Nephew was not. For instance, in The
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when Aslan
is first mentioned, the narrator states, "None of the children knew who Aslan was, any more than you do". Fans of the original
order say that that statement is nonsensical if one has already read The
Magician's Nephew, which assumes, on the contrary, that readers do have
prior knowledge of him.[6] Other similar textual examples are also cited. This
argument hinges partly on the claim that Chronology is not equivalent to
Narrative. [7]
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Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia#The_seven_books
photo extracted from: http://cine2020.espaciolatino.com/fondos/imagenes/las_cronicas_de_narnia.jpg
Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Gemma Verdú Trescolí
vertres@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press