No Order in Narnia

The booksellers said they would check for the other three books in the series; meanwhile, even four out of seven is pretty good.

In Narnia, the enchanted land of Aslan the Great Lion, myths and legends come alive. The new film version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has Shrek-filmmaker Andrew Adamson directing, Liam Neeson giving his voice for Aslan, breathtaking New Zealand backdrops, and a theme song by Alanis Morrissette.

So, for those who, like me, prefer to return to the books before seeing the film, what is the best order in which to read them?

Well, as all classics do, this series too has its own share of controversy: the books were all published between 1950 and 1956, but not in the chronological order of events as they occur.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the first to appear in print, in 1950, Prince Caspian followed in 1951; the last in the publication series was The Last Battle, published in 1956. However, my newly acquired copy of Prince Caspian (published in 1979; Lewis died in 1963) lists the book as the fourth in the series, with The Magician’s Nephew as the first.

And before purists begin their scolding, here is a further complication: in a letter written to a schoolboy in 1957, Lewis seemed to indicate his own preference for the chronological order, adding that the published order wasn’t even quite the same as the order in which the books were written.

So there it is: an order in which they were written, one in which they were published, and a chronological order in which to read them. And, for me, returning to them by means of used books discovered a few at a time, there’s yet another order. So I begin with Prince Caspian and I read about the Pevensie children sitting with their trunks and playboxes at the railway station. And when they feel something pulling, and they rub their eyes and take a deep breath, and Lucy asks: “Do you think we can possibly have got back to Narnia?” — when this happens, we know that there is, after all, a way back to Narnia, and to the wonderland of childhood.