The Chronicles of Narnia Website

Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Q)

Welcome to the F.A.Q. page. Although I love receiving e-mails from visitors and aim to reply to every question, there are times when this is not possible. Therefore this page exists to give people immediate answers to questions. Before you e-mail your questions to me take a look below to see if your question is answered. If you still aren't satisfied then don't hesitate to contact me.

Hypertable of contents:

In what order were the seven 'Chronicles of Narnia' written?

As far as it can be ascertained here is the order in which C.S.Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia:

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
The Lefay Fragment (abandoned attempt at The Magicians Nephew)
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Horse and His Boy
The Silver Chair
The Magicians Nephew (Draft 1)
The Last Battle
The Magicians Nephew (Draft 2)

For more information on the development of the Chronicles below is a chronology charting when C.S.Lewis wrote each book:

DATE	EVENT
Summer 1948	C.S.Lewis begins writing The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
10 March 1949	C.S.Lewis read Roger Lancelyn Green the first two chapters of The Lion
14 June 1949	Lewis reads the first two chapters of The Lefay Fragment to Green
Dec 1949	Green reads the completed manuscript of Prince Caspian
Feb 1950	Green reads the completed manuscript of The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader'
22 June 1950	The Inklings given proofs of the Lion
26 July 1950	Green reads the completed manuscript of The Horse and His Boy
13 Nov 1950	Lewis completes the first few chapters of The Silver Chair
March 1951	Roger Lancelyn Green reads the completed version of The Silver Chair
May-June 1951	At least half of The Magicians Nephew completed
Oct-Nov 1951	Three-quarters of The Magicians Nephew completed
Feb 1953	Green reads the first half of The Last Battle
11 March 1953	C.S.Lewis wrote to his publisher Geoffrey Bles to say 'You will hear with mixed feelings that I have just finished the seventh and really the last of the Narnian stories.'
Feb 1954	Green reads the revised version of The Magicians Nephew

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In what order were the seven 'Chronicles of Narnia' published?

Below I have listed the order in which the Chronicles were published in Great Britain (it may have differed in the United States) along with their publication date (within brackets):

The Lion, The Witch And The Wardorbe (1950)
Prince Caspian: the return to Narnia (1951)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
The Silver Chair (1953)
The Horse And His Boy (1954)
The Magicians Nephew (1955)
The Last Battle (1956)

Note - The order in which the 'Chronicles' were published does not reflect the order in which C.S.Lewis wrote them. For more information on this see the section entitled In what order were the seven 'Chronicles of Narnia' written? which appears above.

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In what order should the seven 'Chronicles of Narnia' be read?

There is no right or wrong answer to this question. During 1957 a boy called Laurence wrote to C.S.Lewis asking the exact same question. He thought the books should be read within the following sequence:

The Magicians Nephew
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
The Horse And His Boy
Prince Caspian: the return to Narnia
The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle

His mother on the other hand thought they should be read in pulication order (see the section entitled In what order were the seven 'Chronicles of Narnia' published? which appears above above). C.S.Lewis replied:

"I think I agree with your order for reading the books more than with your mother's..."

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Who thought of the name the 'Chronicles of Narnia'?

Surprisingly it was not C.S.Lewis. Rather it was the late Roger Lancelyn Green who suggested the 'Chronicles of Narnia' as a name for the series. C.S.Lewis liked it and the name was adopted by the publishers.

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Is it true C.S.Lewis was planning to modify the 'Chronicles' days before he died?

A few days before C.S.Lewis died he had a meeting with Kaye Webb, the series editor of the Chronicles of Narnia, to discuss proposed corrections. It is generally believed that major changes to the story where not considered, rather C.S.Lewis was planning to tie up certain loose ends.

In 1997 I wrote to Kaye Webb to ask what changes C.S.Lewis was planning to make, but unfortunately she had died a few months earlier. As far as I am aware no-one knows for sure what changes C.S.Lewis had in mind although there are interesting speculations.

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What awards did C.S.Lewis win for the 'Chronicles of Narnia' series?

Surprising all but one of the 'Chronicles of Narnia' failed to win an award, 'The Last Battle' being the exception. In 1956 it won the Carnegie Medal for the best children's book of the year.

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What television film adaptations were made of the Chronicles of Narnia?

In 1967 ABC Television Network Production produced nine 20-minute live-action, black and white episodes of 'The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe'. The episodes were broadcast on ITV (UK) between 9 July and 3 September 1967
The Episcopal Radio-TV Foundation of Atlanta, Georgia and the Children's Television Workshop, New York joined together to produce a 2 hour animated film of 'The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe'. It was shown in the US in April 1976 and then in Britain in April 1980.
The BBC produced versions of 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe', 'Prince Caspian', 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' and 'The Silver Chair'. These adaptations were first broadcast on BBC Television between November 1988 and December 1990.

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Where can I buy posters of Narnia?

In the early 1990's Pauline Baines produced a colour map of Narnia and surrounding lands. This was featured on the inside cover of the seven 'Chronicles of Narnia' published by Lions (an imprint of the Children's Division, part of the Harper Collins group). Last time I heard large, colour posters were available from Harper Collins.

You can reach HarperCollins at the following address:

Harper Collins Publishing Group,
8 Grafton Street,
London,
W1X 3LA

If you manage to acquire Narnia posters from this address could you drop me an e-mail giving relevant order details (price, postage & packing/shipping, poster size) so I can advertise it on this site.

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If I live within the UK where can I buy the BBC productions of the Chronicles of Narnia?

The BBC only produced four of the seven Narnian books:

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (1989)
Prince Caspian (1990)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1990)
The Silver Chair (1991)

They are all relatively new and each of the four are still available on BBC Video. You can purchase copies of all four videos from Amazon.co.uk

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If I live outside the UK where can I buy the BBC productions of the Chronicles of Narnia?

As far as I am aware the BBC Videos are available outside the UK although I don't know specific details. The best bet is to try Amazon.com.

However there is good news if you live in Australia. The Australian Site for Children's Video and DVD stock a boxed set of the BBC Productions in PAL format, costing $89.90 Aust. You can visit their website at www.e-grr.com.au

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Are the Chronicles of Narnia allegories?

This is a question that has been asked many times by readers of the Narnia Chronicles. Aslan shares so much in common with Christ that people think the Great Lion is an allegorical representation of Jesus. However the definitive answer to this question is 'no'. How can I be so sure? Because C. S. Lewis tackled the question himself in one of his many letters (see below). It would probably be helpful to hear what C. S. Lewis defined as an allegory:

By an allegory I mean a composition (whether pictorial or literary) in which immaterial realities are represented by feigned physical objects, e.g. a pictured Cupid allegorically represents erotic love (which in reality is an experience, not an object occupying a given area of space) or, in Bunyan, a giant represents Despair.

On 24 December 1959 Lewis wrote the following to a schoolgirl named Sophia Storr:

When I started The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe I don't think I foresaw what Aslan was going to do and suffer. I think He just insisted on behaving in His own way. This of course I did understand and the whole series became Christian.

But it is not, as some people think, an allegory. That is, I don't say 'Let us represent Christ as Aslan.' I say, 'Supposing there was a world like Narnia, and supposing, like ours, it needed redemption, let us imagine what sort of Incarnation and Passion and Resurrection Christ would have there.' See?

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If the 'Chronicles of Narnia' are not allegories, what are they?

C. S. Lewis clearly did not write the 'Chronicles of Narnia' as allegories. If this is true what are they? The 'Chronicles of Narnia' are in fact what is called a supposition. Once again I will let C. S. Lewis answer the question in his own words:

If Aslan represented the immaterial Diety, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, 'What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all. So in Perelandra. This also works out a supposition. ('Suppose, even now, in some other planet there were a first couple undergoing the same that Adam and Eve underwent there, but successfully.')

Allegory and such supposals differ because they mix the real and the unreal in different ways. Bunyan's picture of Giant Despair does not start from supposal at all. It is not supposition but a fact that despair can capture and imprison a human soul. What is unreal (fictional) is the gaint, the castle and the dungeon. The incarnation of Christ in another world is mere supposal: but granted the supposition, He would really have been a physical object in that world as He was in Palestine, and His death on the Stone Table would have been a physical event no less than his death on Calvary.

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Where can I buy the cartoon film of 'The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe'?

There have been a number of people e-mailing me, desperate to get their hands on a copy of the Episcopal Radio-TV Foundation's animated version of 'The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe'. Some of them developed a fondness for the film having seen it as a child.

There are problems in getting hold of copies because the film is relatively old (it was broadcast in 1976 in the USA and then four years later in Britain) and time is working against us. As far as I am aware it is out of production and not being sold by the major retailers.

However the one place I have seen the video advertised is in Amazon.co.uk's zShops. I haven't checked Amazon.com however logically it should be available there too.

If anyone does manage to get their hands on a copy could you please e-mail me with the details of how you did it and how much you paid, so that I can pass this information on to others who may be interested. Happy hunting.

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'The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe' was dedicated to Lucy Barfield. Who was Lucy Barfield?

The dedication on the inside of 'The Lion' reads like this:

TO LUCY BARFIELD

My Dear Lucy,

I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realised that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

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