The Magician's Nephew is a portal fantasy novel by British author C. S. Lewis, published in 1955 by The Bodley Head. It is the sixth published of seven novels in The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956). In recent editions, which sequence the books in the chronological order of the story, it appears as the first volume of the series. Like the others, it was illustrated by Pauline Baynes whose work has been retained in many later editions. The Bodley Head was a new publisher for The Chronicles, a change from Geoffrey Bles who had published the previous five novels.
The Magician's Nephew is a prequel to the series. The middle third of the novel features the creation of the Narnia world by Aslan the lion, centred on a section of a lamp-post brought by accidental observers from London in 1900. The visitors then participate in the beginning of Narnia's history, 1000 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-aged world to be only two of many in a multiverse, which changes as some worlds begin and others end. It also explains the origin of foreign elements in Narnia, not only the lamp-post but also 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 explores a number of themes with general moral and Christian implications, including atonement, original sin, temptation, and the order of nature.
Plot summary In 1900, two children, Digory and Polly, live in the same London terrace. When exploring a crawl space joining the houses, they find themselves in the study of Digory's Uncle Andrew. Andrew tricks Polly into touching a yellow magic ring, causing her to vanish. He explains to Digory that the rings allow travel between worlds. He blackmails Digory into taking another yellow ring to follow Polly, and two green rings so that they both can return.
Digory is transported to a sleepy wood filled with pools where he reunites with Polly. They surmise that the wood is a "Wood between the Worlds", similar to the attic that links their houses back in England, and that each pool leads to a separate universe. They decide to explore a different world before returning to England, and jump into one of the nearby pools.
They find themselves in a desolate abandoned city of the ancient world of Charn. Inside the ruined palace, they find a bell with a hammer and an inscription inviting the finder to strike the bell. Despite Polly's protests, Digory rings the bell, awakening a witch-queen named Jadis, who, to avoid defeat in battle, deliberately killed every living thing in Charn by speaking the "Deplorable Word" before placing herself in an enchanted sleep that would end on the ringing of the bell.
The children attempt to flee, but Jadis follows them back to England by clinging to them as they clutch their rings. In England, she orders Uncle Andrew to fetch her a "chariot"a hansom cabso she can conquer Earth. She robs a jeweller's shop and returns to Kirke house pursued by police. Jadis tears an iron rod from a nearby lamp-post, using it to fight off police and onlookers when they mock her.
Polly and Digory grab Jadis and put on their rings to take her out of their worldaccidentally bringing Uncle Andrew, Frank the cab-driver, and Frank's horse Strawberry, who were all touching each other when the children grabbed their rings. In the Wood between the Worlds, Strawberry, when attempting to drink from one of the ponds, accidentally brings everyone into a void. At first, Digory believes it to be Charn, but Jadis recognises it as a world not yet created. They witness the lion Aslan bringing stars, plants, and animals into existence as he creates the new world, Narnia. A terrified Jadis tries to kill Aslan with the iron rod, but it rebounds harmlessly off him, and in the creative soil of the new world it sprouts into a growing lamp-post.
Aslan gives some animals the power of speech. Frank the cabby and his wife Helen are crowned King and Queen of Narnia. Aslan confronts Digory with his responsibility for waking Jadis and for bringing her into Narnia, and tells Digory he must atone by helping to protect the new land of Narnia from her evil. Aslan transforms Strawberry into a winged horse, and Digory and Polly fly on him to a distant garden. Digory's task is to take an apple from a tree in this garden to plant in Narnia. At the garden Digory finds a sign warning not to steal the fruit.
Digory encounters Jadis in the garden, where she eats one of the apples to become immortal. She first tempts Digory to eat an apple himself, and then to take one back to Earth to heal his dying mother. Digory resists and Jadis departs for the north. Digory returns to Narnia and plants the apple, which grows into a mature tree as Aslan explains that anyone who steals the fruit for themselves will get their heart's desire, but in a form that renders it disagreeable: Jadis is now immortal, but eternally miserable. Moreover, the new tree will protect Narnia from Jadis for centuries to come. Aslan consents for Digory to take an apple from the new tree for his mother and returns Digory, Polly, and Uncle Andrew to England.
Digory's apple restores his mother's health, and he and Polly remain lifelong friends. Uncle Andrew reforms and gives up magic. Digory plants the apple's core with Uncle Andrew's rings in the back yard of his aunt's home in London, and it grows into a large tree. Soon afterwards, Digory's family inherits a mansion in the country, and many years later the apple tree blows down in a storm. Digory, now a professor, has its wood made into a wardrobe, setting up the events in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Principal characters
Digory Kirke: A boy who becomes the Professor in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Polly Plummer: Digory's friend who lives next door Mabel Kirke: Digory's mother Andrew Ketterley: Digory's uncle, a minor magician Letitia Ketterley: Uncle Andrew's sister, referred to in the book as "Aunt Letty" Jadis: Empress of Charn, who becomes the White Witch appearing in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Aslan: The Lion who creates Narnia and kills Jadis in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe King Frank: A cabby who becomes the first king of Narnia and ancestor of the kings of Archenland Queen Helen: The wife of King Frank, the first queen of Narnia, and the ancestress of the Archenlanders Fledge: The winged horse, formerly the cab-horse Strawberry, who carries Polly and Digory to the mountain garden
Writing Lewis had originally intended only to write the one Narnia novel, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. However, when Roger Lancelyn Green asked him how a lamp-post came to be standing in the midst of Narnian woodland, Lewis was intrigued enough by the question to attempt to find an answer by writing The Magician's Nephew, which features a younger version of Professor Kirke from the first novel.Downing, p. 36.
The Magician's Nephew seems to have been the most challenging Narnia novel for Lewis to write. While the other six Chronicles of Narnia books were written between 1948 and 1953, The Magician's Nephew was written over a five-year period between 1949 and 1954. He started in the summer of 1949 after finishing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but came to a halt after producing 26 pages of manuscript and did not resume work until two years later. This may be as a result of the autobiographical aspects of the novel, as it reflects a number of incidents and parallels very close to his own experiences.Downing, p. 56.
He returned to The Magician's Nephew late in 1950, after completing The Silver Chair. He managed to finish close to three-quarters of the novel, and then stopped work once again after Roger Green, to whom Lewis showed all his writing at the time, suggested there was a structural problem in the story. Finally he returned to the novel in 1953, after finishing The Last Battle in the spring of that year and completed early in 1954.
Lewis originally titled the novel "Polly and Digory"; his publisher changed it to The Magician's Nephew. This book is dedicated to "the Kilmer family".
The Lefay Fragment
The original opening of the novel differs greatly from the published version, and was abandoned by Lewis. It is now known as 'The Lefay Fragment', and is named after Mrs Lefay, Digory's fairy godmother, who is mentioned in the final version as Uncle Andrew's godmother, a less benevolent user of magic, who bequeathed him the box of dust used to create the magic rings.Downing, pp. 36–39.
In the Lefay Fragment, Digory is born with the ability to speak to (and understand) trees and animals; the distinction between Talking and non-Talking Beasts which was to become such a characteristic feature of the Narnian world is absent. Digory lives with an Aunt Gertrude, a former school mistress with an officious, bullying nature, who has ended up as a Government minister after a lifetime of belligerent brow-beating of others. Whenever his aunt is absent, Digory finds solace with the animals and trees, including a squirrel named Pattertwig. Polly enters the story as a girl next door who is unable to understand the speech of non-human creatures. She wants to build a raft to explore a stream which leads to an underground world. Digory helps construct the raft, but saws a branch from a tree necessary to complete it, in order not to lose face with Polly. This causes him to lose his supernatural powers of understanding the speech of trees and animals. The following day he is visited by his godmother Mrs Lefay who knows that Digory has lost his abilities and gives him a card with the address of a furniture shop which she instructs him to visit. At this point the fragment ends.Downing, pp. 36–37.
Pattertwig and Aunt Gertrude do not appear in the final version of the novel. Pattertwig does, however, appear as a Narnian creature in Prince Caspian, and Aunt Gertrude's career path is retraced by the Head of Experiment House in The Silver Chair.Downing, p. 39.
Authenticity
Some doubt has been cast on the authenticity of the Lefay Fragment, as the handwriting in the manuscript differs in some ways from Lewis's usual style, and the writing is not of a similar calibre to his other work. Also in August 1963 Lewis had given instructions to Douglas Gresham to destroy all his unfinished or incomplete fragments of manuscript when his rooms at Magdalene College, Cambridge were being cleaned out, following his resignation from the college early in the month.
Autobiographical elements
A number of aspects of The Magician's Nephew are parallels with Lewis's own life. Both Digory and Lewis were children in the early 1900s, both wanted a pony, and both faced the death of their mothers in childhood. Digory is separated from his father, who is in India, and misses him. Lewis was educated in England after his mother's death, while his father remained in Ireland. He also had a brother in India. Both Lewis and Digory were voracious readers as children, and both are better with books than with numbers. Digory (and Polly) struggle with sums when trying to work out how far they must travel along the attic space to explore an abandoned house, Lewis failed the mathematics entrance exam for Oxford University. Lewis remembered rainy summer days from his youth and Digory is faced with the same woe in the novel. Additionally Digory becomes a professor when he grows up, who takes in evacuated children during World War II.Hinten, pp. 68–69.