The Magician's Nephew

The Magician’s Nephew is a high fantasy novel for children by C.S. Lewis published by Bodley Head in 1955. It was the sixth published of seven novels in The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956) series; it is volume one in recent editions, which are sequenced according to Narnian history. Like the others it was illustrated by Pauline Baynes and her work has been retained in many later editions.

    The Magician’s Nephew is a prequel to the books of the same series. The middle third of the novel features creation of the Narnia world by Aslan the lion, centered at a section of a lamp-post brought by accidental observers from London during year 1900. The visitors then participate in the beginning of Narnian history, 1,000 years before The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (which inaugurated the series in 1950). The frame story set in England features two children ensnared in experimental travel via “the wood between the worlds.” Thus, the novel shows Narnia and our middle-age world to be only two of many in a multiverse changing as some worlds begin and others end. It also explains the origin of foreign elements in Narnia, not only the lamp-post but the White Witch and a human king and queen.

     Lewis began The Magician’s Nephew soon after completing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, spurred by a friend’s question about the lamp-post in the middle of nowhere, but he needed more than five years to complete it. The story includes several autobiographical elements and it explores a number of themes with general moral and Christian implications including atonement, original sin, temptation, and the order of nature. Macmillan US published an American edition within the calendar year.