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When I originally read The Chronicles of Narnia I read an older boxset which has the books numbered in original publication order:

  1. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
  2. Prince Caspian
  3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
  4. The Silver Chair
  5. The Horse and His Boy
  6. The Magician's Nephew
  7. The Last Battle

This was later changed by the publishers to be in chronological order as pertaining to the timeline of Narnia:

  1. The Magician's Nephew
  2. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
  3. The Horse and His Boy
  4. Prince Caspian
  5. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
  6. The Silver Chair
  7. The Last Battle

I've never understood the reason for this change and I can't think of any other cases where a series of novels' order was changed by a publisher. What was the reason the publishers decided to make this change in reading order of The Chronicles of Narnia?

Kate Gregory
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sanpaco
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  • Which publisher is/are your boxset(s) from? – Rand al'Thor Jul 18 '20 at 16:55
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    The older one is published by Macmillan and the newer one is published by HarperCollins – sanpaco Jul 18 '20 at 19:23
  • Yep, that fits with what I wrote in my answer :-) – Rand al'Thor Jul 18 '20 at 19:47
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    One edition of EE Doc Smith's Skylark series had the second book in the series put into the third slot by mistake because the second book of the series is named Skylark 3 (they break the first Skylark in the first book and make the Skylark 2 all in the first book). – NomadMaker Jul 19 '20 at 05:23
  • If a series adds prequels or "side" stories, it's unusual for people to not consume the series in in-universe chronological order after those are available. Consider Star Wars - it would be strange to watch 4-6 and only then watch Rogue One afterwards. (YMMV on other episodes, but most people agree the original trilogy and Rogue One are good.) – Graham Jul 19 '20 at 23:58
  • @Graham true enough but this is a different case. The novels were published as a series, not as prequels. If this were similar to star wars then we'd have gotten books 2, and then 4-7 and finally 1 and 3. Consider also Wheel of Time series which has a prequel which was written later. The original series are still numbered in the same order because they are part of a series. They didn't change volume 1 to volume 2 when the prequel was published, they just published it as a prequel. – sanpaco Jul 20 '20 at 02:06

1 Answers1

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The question of reading order for The Chronicles of Narnia is a complicated one, with much debate even among avid fans of the series. But you've asked only why publishers changed the order, which is much easier to answer objectively than which order is "best"/preferable.

The answer lies in a letter which Lewis wrote, dated April 1957, to a young American fan named Laurence Kreig. The boy preferred internal chronological order (starting with The Magician's Nephew) while his mother preferred publication order (starting with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). Lewis said:

I think I agree with your order for reading the books more than with your mother's. The series was not planned beforehand as she thinks. When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn't think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last, but I found I was wrong. So perhaps it does not matter very much in which order anyone read them. I’m not even sure that all the others were written in the same order in which they were published. I never keep notes of that sort of thing and never remember dates.

In C.S. Lewis's Collected Letters, Volume 3, pp. 847-8, the following footnote is added to this letter:

In the summer of 1963 Lewis had Walter Hooper write down the order in which he preferred the stories to be read: The Magician’s Nephew; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Horse and His Boy; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’; The Silver Chair; and The Last Battle. Regarding the order in which the stories were written, see CG, ‘The Writing of the Narnias’, pp. 401–5.

The US publication rights were originally owned by Macmillan, who preferred the original publication order starting with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In 1994, Harper Collins took over the US publication rights, and they changed the order to internal chronological order starting with The Magician's Nephew. Why? In the 2005 Harper Collins editions, the publishers added the following note:

Although The Magician's Nephew was written several years after C. S. Lewis first began The Chronicles of Narnia, he wanted it to be read as the first book in the series. HarperCollins is happy to present these books in the order in which Professor Lewis preferred.

TL;DR: Lewis himself expressed a preference for internal chronological order, at least a couple of times, and the publishers of later editions decided to follow this.

Further reading: Paul Ford, Companion to Narnia: A Complete Guide to the Magical World of C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, 2005. Hat-tip also to Wikipedia and Jon Ericson's blog and comments for guiding me to some useful sources.

Rand al'Thor
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    Great answer and very interesting. I never knew that Lewis himself said he wanted the order changed. This actually slightly changes my opinion about the "correct" order haha. Although I'll probably stick to the order I first read them in. – sanpaco Jul 18 '20 at 19:21
  • There's a LOT of debate about the "correct" order among fans and critics. In fact, asking about the reasons for and against each of the two main orders would make a good new [tag:reading-order] question ... – Rand al'Thor Jul 18 '20 at 19:48
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    There are obviously things to be said in favour of both points of view. But, personally,I would find it very odd if reading the Narnia series for the first time to attempt to read an entire novel before reading The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. Perhaps the subsequent order is not so important, but it would be baffling to read any novel from the series prior to reading the one which explains what is happening and introduces all the characters. – Ed999 Jul 18 '20 at 21:32
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    In these quotes, at least, it seems more like Lewis was encouraging a young reader to explore literature than expressing his own advocacy for a chronological reordering. – chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic- Jul 18 '20 at 22:21
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    I'm leaning towards agreement with @chrylis-cautiouslyoptimistic-, while Lewis stated the he "thinks" he agrees with the chronological order, he also states that it doesn't matter entirely what order you read them in. The quote then by HarperCollins stating that they are presenting the series in the "order that Lewis preferred" seems to jump from a slightly leaning opinion to some kind of a dying desire to have changed the order. – sanpaco Jul 19 '20 at 01:47
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    @chrylis-cautiouslyoptimistic- I think that's the case in the quote to a young reader, but you are neglecting the footnote in Collected Letters, which at least as written there says a "preference." – Eliza Wilson Jul 19 '20 at 04:33
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    @Ed999 I don't think your comment makes sense--The Magician's Nephew is internally chronologically earlier than TLTWTW, so it in fact introduces and explains aspects of the world and the characters of TLTWTW. – Eliza Wilson Jul 19 '20 at 04:35
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    @ElizaWilson I don't think that follows. The Magician's Nephew assumes the reader is already familiar with Narnia. In fact Narnia is mentioned in the very first paragraph, without further explanation (and the narrative doesn't even reach Narnia until halfway through the book). By contrast, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe the reader is properly introduced to Narnia as Lucy and the other children find out about it. – Especially Lime Jul 19 '20 at 08:37
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    I did say there's a lot of debate ... this comment thread is already proving it :-D – Rand al'Thor Jul 19 '20 at 08:40
  • @Randal'Thor https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/14969/for-and-against-different-reading-orders-for-narnia – simonalexander2005 Jul 20 '20 at 09:59
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    @EspeciallyLime You are quite right. Regardless of what any author may say, the best order to read any series is publication order. Because that would be the order most fans read it in, and it's the only one that's guaranteed to make sense for all cases. It's the only way to get the true experience of a series, if you know what I mean. Narnia began with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It just did. That's the first book that was published. That's the one that introduced millions of people to Narnia. Read it first. – user91988 Jul 20 '20 at 15:13
  • @user91988 I generally agree, but there are some counterexamples. Discworld is one IMO - it makes a lot of sense to read the books with the same protagonists (e.g. Tiffany Aching books) consecutively, even though others were written in between. But this example is just another reason to follow publication order for Narnia IMO: Prince Caspian follows on so naturally from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that it seems odd to read the Horse and His Boy in between. – Especially Lime Jul 20 '20 at 15:56
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    @ElizaWilson But your argument implies that it is necessary to read The Magician's Nephew first, which is obviously nonsense because five other books in the series were published before it: i.e. it was originally impossible to read it first, because when the earlier five volumes were published it didn't exist, so couldn't be read. Yet no one was any the worse for that. It adds details, but the details it adds were plainly not necessary for understanding the five books already published, or the series up to that point would not have made sense. – Ed999 Aug 01 '20 at 00:20