Departure Voyage Arc

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Lore & Background

The name Narnia is based on Narni, Italy, written in Latin as Narnia. C. S. Lewis found the word in Murray's Small Classical Atlas, ed. G.B. Grundy (1904), which he acquired when reading classics with Mr William T. Kirkpatrick at Great Bookham between 1914 and 1917. On plate 8 of the Atlas is a map of ancient Italy; Lewis had underscored the name of a little town called Narnia, simply because he liked the sound of it. Narnia – or 'Narni' in Italian – is in Umbria, halfway between Rome and Assisi. The series was first referred to as The Chronicles of Narnia by fellow children's author Roger Lancelyn Green in March 1951, after he had read and discussed with Lewis his recently completed fourth book The Silver Chair, originally entitled Night under Narnia.

In Their Own Story

The Lion all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in C. S. Lewis's mind since he was about sixteen. Then one day, when he was about forty, he said to himself: "Let's try to make a story about it." At the start of World War II, many children were evacuated to the English countryside. On 2 September 1939, three school girls named Margaret, Mary and Katherine came to live at The Kilns in Risinghurst, Lewis's home three miles east of Oxford city centre. Lewis later suggested that the experience gave him a new appreciation of children and in late September he began a children's story on an odd sheet of paper: "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... 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."

Reader's Guide

The seven books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia are presented here in order of original publication date. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, completed by the end of March 1949 and published by Geoffrey Bles in the United Kingdom on 16 October 1950, tells the story of four ordinary children: Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie, Londoners who were evacuated to the English countryside following the outbreak of World War II. They discover a wardrobe in Professor Digory Kirke's house that leads to the magical land of Narnia. The Pevensie children help Aslan, a talking lion, save Narnia from the evil White Witch, who has reigned for a century of perpetual winter with no Christmas. The children become kings and queens of this new-found land and establish the Golden Age of Narnia. Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia, completed after Christmas 1949 and published on 15 October 1951, tells the story of the Pevensie children's second trip to Narnia, a year (on Earth) after their first. They are drawn back by the power of Susan's horn, blown by Prince Caspian to summon help. Narnia as they knew it is no more, as 1,300 years have passed, their castle is in ruins, and all Narnians have retreated so far within themselves that only Aslan's magic can wake them. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, written between January and February 1950 and published on 15 September 1952, sees Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, along with their priggish cousin, Eustace Scrubb, return to Narnia, three Narnian years (and one Earth year) after their last departure. Once there, they join Caspian's voyage on the ship Dawn Treader to find the seven lords who were banished when Miraz took over the throne.

Did You Know?

• C. S. Lewis did not write the books in the order in which they were originally published, nor were they published in their current chronological order of presentation.
• Lewis was awarded the 1956 Carnegie Medal for The Last Battle, the final book in the saga.
• The original illustrator, Pauline Baynes, created pen and ink drawings for the Narnia books that are still used in the editions published today.
• The series has sold approximately 120 million copies in 47 languages.
• Lewis described the origin of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in an essay entitled 'It All Began with a Picture'.