The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe!

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe buy C.S. Lewis was first published in 1950. It begins what is now known as The Narnia Chronicles. According to a note at the beginning of the book Lewis intended this story for one particular young person but the complexity of making it, meant that she was no longer within the target range of the audience. It tuns out that Lewis was wrong in that estimation, in that the novel has resonance for children of all ages. That's certainly helped by the charming illustrations by Pauline Baynes. This story and the ones that followed have been reprinted time and again over the decades. 

The story is set during World War II when children were evacuated from London due to the dangers associated with the German Blitz attacks on the city. The four siblings -- Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie find themselves welcomed by an old professor into his large home. To pass the time they play the game of hide and seek and Lucy, the youngest hides in a big wooden wardrobe isolated in an upstairs room.  She discovers to her dismay and delight that it offers access to Narnia, a land frozen in ever-present snow. She is found by a faun named Mr. Tumnus who explains to her that she should go back to her home. She does and tells her siblings who don't believe her. Then one day she goes into the wardrobe again and the mischievous Edmund follows her. His meeting with the evil Queen really kicks off things. 

This is a story of sin and redemption. Edmund is a greedy and selfish boy who finds himself slave to his wicked impulses. To save him from paying the price for his sins, a great sacrifice must be made, but that sacrifice must made by free will. In the first novel, The Magician's Nephew we saw Aslan create the entire world of Narnia. In this adventure he functions as another aspect of the Trinity -- Jesus Christ. He is willing to lay down his life for another, someone who is far from hardly innocent. 

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the first Narnia book to be written and published but is regarded as the second installment in The Narnia Chronicles, the first being The Magician's Nephew. I suspect Lewis had little idea he was creating an epic in children's literature, but this series has endured now for three quarters of a century. 

Next time we go out of publication order again to look at The Horse and His Boy. 

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