Which comes first\u2014the wardrobe or the magician?<\/p>\n
C. S. Lewis published one Narnia\u00a0book a year from 1950-1956, in this order:<\/p>\n
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe At some point, Lewis allegedly told someone that the books should be read in chronological order, beginning with The Magician’s Nephew<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Alhough I usually agree with authors about their own work, I think Lewis was suffering from temporary insanity \ud83d\ude09 if he really said that.<\/p>\n Does anyone know where that’s documented?\u00a0 (Other than on the copyright page of the new rearranged editions?)<\/p>\n Lewis wrote The Magician’s Nephew <\/em>with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em> in mind, and I don’t see how someone who isn’t familiar with LWW could possibly appreciate all the nuances of Nephew.\u00a0 The planting of the lamppost, the revelation that Digory grows up to become a Professor, and the use of the timber from the Narnian tree in a wardrobe are much more powerful when the reader can experience that magical moment of recognition. Mary Jo Tate<\/p>\n P.S. – As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.\u00a0 In fact, you’re welcome to make a case for putting The Magician’s Nephew <\/em>first if you like. I’d be interested to\u00a0see the other point of view.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Which comes first\u2014the wardrobe or the magician? C. S. Lewis published one Narnia\u00a0book a year from 1950-1956, in this order: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Prince Caspian The Voyage of the Dawn Treader The Silver Chair The Horse and His Boy The Magician’s Nephew The Last Battle At some point, Lewis allegedly told … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPrince Caspian
\nThe Voyage of the Dawn Treader
\nThe Silver Chair
\nThe Horse and His Boy
\nThe Magician’s Nephew
\nThe Last Battle<\/em><\/p>\n
\nI don’t think the placement of The Horse and His Boy<\/em> really matters all that
\nmuch, but The Magician’s Nephew<\/em> is sooooo much richer when you’ve already
\nread The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>.\u00a0 I can’t imagine entering Narnia for the first time by any means other than the wardrobe.<\/p>\n