Circa-1970s, a complete set of the Narnia Tales -- in the right order.
This week I bought my third complete set of the Narnia Tales.
I don’t buy every set of the Narnia Tales that I see, of course, but within seconds of seeing this one, I clutched it tight.
The books, you see, were in the right order.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, et al, ending with The Last Battle.
When HarperCollins became the publisher in 1994, the books were reordered to chronological order, rather than C.S. Lewis’ published-book order. New sets begin with The Magician’s Nephew, which is book 6 of 7, for pete’s sake!)
I consider the series’ reordering about money and not the purported reason given by Douglas Gresham, Lewis’ stepson. Gresham’s and HarperCollins’ reason was based on a 1957 letter Lewis wrote to a little American girl:
I think I agree with your [chronological] 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.
Clearly Lewis was being nice to a little girl who didn’t have much imagination — and even less patience.
Furthermore, Lewis never made a move to have the original publisher change the order. Did he think that perhaps God had as much to do with the order as anything, given that he never expected to write more than one? (I like to think so.)
Today’s society wants everything now, Now, NOW. Much like the Blueberry Girl in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. (And we all know what an unfortunate end she had.) The chronological order appeals to that crowd.
Decades ago when I made my first foray way through the Narnia Tales, I was enthralled to learn the back story late in the game. (“Oh, that’s who the professor was?!”) And I was thrilled to see Lucy and Edmond again in The Horse and His Boy when I’d thought all hope was lost of seeing them ever again.
Those misguided enough to buy one of today’s ill-ordered complete sets will never know the homecoming joy they would have discovered had they stuck to the original order.
Stick to the real order.
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