The Chronicles of Narnia

C. S. Lewis wrote seven portal fantasy novels that make up *The Chronicles of Narnia*, a series set in a magical realm filled with talking animals, mythical creatures, and enchantment. The books follow children from the real world—except in *The Horse and His Boy*—who are whisked away to Narnia, where the lion Aslan (present in every volume) often calls on them to fight evil. The story covers Narnia’s full timeline, beginning with its creation in *The Magician’s Nephew* and ending with its destruction in *The Last Battle*. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes, the novels were first released between 1950 and 1956.

Lewis’s own life left a clear mark on the series. His move to a large Belfast house, the early death of his mother, and his time at English boarding schools show up in details like Lucy finding the wardrobe or the Pevensie children attending school. He pulled heavily from mythology, medieval literature, and cosmology: the Old Irish *immrama* helped shape *The Voyage of the Dawn Treader*, and Michael Ward’s *Planet Narnia* theory links each book to a medieval planet and its traits. Lewis also drew on Plato, George MacDonald, Dante, and John Milton for themes, character types, and moral lessons. Christian ideas appear woven into figures like Aslan, though Lewis called this “supposition” rather than “allegory.”

The series has left a big mark on books and pop culture. Writers such as Philip Pullman, Katherine Paterson, Lev Grossman, and J. K. Rowling have taken inspiration from its worlds, characters, and storytelling. Critics have pointed out issues like unevenness, gender stereotypes, and racial portrayals, but supporters note that female characters often act heroically and that the books’ focus on morality, courage, and imagination keeps them popular.

*The Chronicles of Narnia* is seen as a classic in children’s literature and Lewis’s most successful work, with about 120 million copies sold in 47 languages. It has been turned into radio shows, TV programs, stage plays, movies, and video games.

**Background and conception**

Lewis first got the idea for what became *The Chronicles of Narnia* in 1939—though a mental image of a Faun with parcels in a snowy wood went back to 1914—but he didn’t finish the first book, *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe*, until 1949. *The Magician’s Nephew*, published second-to-last but written last, was completed in 1954. He didn’t write or publish the books in the order they now appear chronologically. Pauline Baynes’s original pen-and-ink drawings still accompany the series today.

Lewis won the 1956 Carnegie Medal for *The Last Battle*, the final book. The name “The Chronicles of Narnia” was first used by fellow children’s author Roger Lancelyn Green in March 1951, after he read and discussed with Lewis the just-finished fourth book, *The Silver Chair* (originally titled *Night under Narnia*).

In an essay called “It All Began with a Picture,” Lewis explained the start of *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe*: “The Lion all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: ‘Let’s try to make a story about it.’”

During World War II, many children were sent from cities to the English countryside to avoid Nazi bombing. On 2 September 1939, three schoolgirls—Margaret, Mary, and Katherine—came to live at The Kilns in Risinghurst, Lewis’s home east of Oxford. Lewis later said this gave him a fresh view of children, and in late September he started a children’s story on a scrap of paper that survives inside another manuscript: “This book is about four children whose names were Ann, Martin, Rose and Peter. But it is most about Peter who was the youngest. They all had to go away from London suddenly because of Air Raids, and because Father, who was in the Army, had gone off to the War and Mother was doing some kind of war work. They were sent to stay with a kind of relation of Mother’s who was a very old professor who lived all by himself in the country.”

Lewis continued in the essay: “At first, I had very little idea how the story would go. But then suddenly Aslan came bounding into it. I think I had been having a good many dreams of lions about that time. Apart from that, I don’t know where the Lion came from or why he came. But once he was there, he pulled the whole story together, and soon he pulled the six other Narnian stories in after him.” Though Lewis claimed not to know where Aslan came from, scholar Jared Lobdell points to Charles Williams’s 1931 novel *The Place of the Lion* as a likely influence. The manuscript for *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe* was finished by the end of March 1949.

**Name**

The name Narnia comes from Narni, Italy, which in Latin is written as Narnia. Green noted that when Walter Hooper asked Lewis where he found the word, Lewis showed him Murray’s *Small Classical Atlas*, edited by G. B. Grundy (1904), which he had used while studying classics with Mr. William T. Kirkpatrick at Great Bookham starting in 1914.