The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a 1950 the blitz book written by C. S. Lewis.
Four siblings sent away from wartime London stumble through the back of an old wardrobe into Narnia, a world held in endless winter by the White Witch. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy find talking beasts, a faun with an umbrella, and whispers of a great lion named Aslan who is on the move. C. S. Lewis writes with the plainness of a bedtime tale and the pull of myth, a short book that has carried readers into its snowbound woods for more than seventy years. Winter here is a spell waiting to break.
Quick answers
What is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe about?
Four siblings sent away from wartime London stumble through the back of an old wardrobe into Narnia, a world held in endless winter by the White Witch. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy find talking beasts, a faun with an umbrella, and whispers of a great lion named Aslan who is on the move. C. S. Lewis writes with the plainness of a bedtime tale and the pull of myth, a short book that has carried readers into its snowbound woods for more than seventy years. Winter here is a spell waiting to break.
When was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe published?
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was published in 1950.
Who made The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was written by C. S. Lewis.
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A few thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The 2005 film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe brings the frozen wood and the great battle to the screen with the same storybook heart. Younger readers moving toward richer fantasy can grow into the game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, another tale of small courage set loose in a vast, magical wild.
Doors to other worlds: where to go after the wardrobe
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is most readers' first doorway, and the genre built a century of doors behind it. A letter delivered by owl, a school that sorts good from evil, an underground city with failing lights, and a ruined kingdom you wake into alone: every one opens somewhere worth going.
Fantasy that argues with Narnia
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe preaches as it enchants, and some of the genre's best books were written to talk back. Philip Pullman built His Dark Materials as a direct answer to Lewis, armored bears against talking lions, and The Giver asks what a paradise costs. Reading both sides is the real education.
The rest of Narnia, in reading order
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is one door into a seven-book country. Prince Caspian returns the Pevensies to a Narnia grown old without them, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader sails off the edge of the map, The Magician's Nephew shows the lamppost being planted, and the 2005 film gets the snow exactly right.