Where to Start with C.S. Lewis: A Reading Guide
Where to start with C.S. Lewis — whether to begin with The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Screwtape Letters, or Mere Christianity. A complete reading guide.
C.S. Lewis (1898–1963) is one of the most widely read British authors of the twentieth century — a scholar, Christian apologist, and novelist whose Narnia series has introduced more children to the pleasures of fantasy fiction than any other single work, and whose non-fiction (particularly The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity) has been the most influential Christian apologetics in the English-speaking world. His career spans scholarship (on medieval literature), fantasy (Narnia, the Space Trilogy), and Christian argument — a combination unique in modern letters.
Where to Start: The Narnia Series
The Best Entry: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
The essential first Narnia — and the best starting point regardless of whether you read the series in publication or chronological order. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy discover Narnia through a wardrobe in the old professor’s house and encounter a world under the tyranny of the White Witch, who has made it always winter but never Christmas. Aslan — the great lion whose sacrifice and resurrection constitute the novel’s Christian allegory — is Lewis’s most powerful creation. The story is immediately compelling at the level of children’s adventure and at the deeper level of theological argument. The best single book for readers who want to discover whether Narnia is for them.
The Prequel: The Magician’s Nephew (1955)
Best read after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe rather than first, despite its chronological priority. The story of how Narnia was created — and how the evil Jadis (the future White Witch) was brought from the dying world of Charn — gains its dramatic weight from the reader’s prior knowledge of what Narnia becomes and who Jadis becomes. Lewis’s account of Narnia’s creation, modeled on Genesis, is his most theologically explicit and most poetically beautiful writing in the series.
Prince Caspian (1951)
The second Narnia novel — the children return to Narnia to find that a thousand years have passed and the Old Narnia of talking animals and magic is suppressed. The novel is more complex than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — it requires faith in the reality of Narnia even when the physical evidence is absent — and its account of what happens when a civilization forgets its own history is Lewis’s most politically explicit allegory. The Telmarine conquest of Narnia is generally read as a figure for secularism’s suppression of religious belief.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
The most episodic of the Narnia books and the most immediately satisfying as adventure fiction. Edmund and Lucy (with their irritating cousin Eustace) sail with King Caspian to the ends of the world. Each island they visit presents a new moral test; Eustace’s transformation — from a selfish boy who becomes a dragon and is ‘undragonned’ by Aslan — is Lewis’s most Pauline account of conversion and grace. The novel ends at the edge of Aslan’s Country — the closest approach to the theological destination that the earlier novels have been moving toward.
The Essential Non-Fiction: The Screwtape Letters (1942)
Lewis’s most inventive and most immediately engaging non-fiction — a series of letters from the experienced tempter Screwtape to his novice nephew Wormwood, advising him on how to corrupt his assigned human patient. The satirical reversal is Lewis’s most sustained formal achievement outside Narnia: by presenting Christianity’s account of temptation from the perspective of the tempters, he makes his arguments vivid and unexpected. Accessible to readers of any religious background; its psychological observations about self-deception, spiritual complacency, and the mechanisms of moral corruption are independent of theological commitment.
The Last Battle (1956)
The final Narnia novel — and the most theologically ambitious and most formally controversial. The end of Narnia and the ‘true Narnia’ that exists beyond it constitute Lewis’s most direct engagement with his Christian eschatology. The novel has been criticised for its treatment of Susan (she does not enter the final paradise, apparently because she has ‘grown up’) and for a late section in which a Calormene warrior (from the enemies of Narnia) is welcomed into Aslan’s country because his good actions, though dedicated to the wrong god, were genuinely good. Lewis’s most philosophically complex Narnia book; best read last.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I start with C.S. Lewis?
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) is the best starting point for most readers — the first Narnia book published and the most immediately compelling. Four children discover a wardrobe that leads to the magical world of Narnia, where the White Witch has made it always winter but never Christmas, and where the great lion Aslan is waiting to return. The novel is the clearest and most affecting of the Narnia books; its Christian allegory is powerful even for readers who do not approach it as such. For adult readers who want Lewis's non-fiction, The Screwtape Letters is the best entry.
What is the correct reading order for Narnia?
The Narnia series is frequently debated in terms of reading order. Lewis himself suggested the chronological order (beginning with The Magician's Nephew), but most readers and critics recommend the publication order, beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — which is the most emotionally complete standalone novel and the best introduction to Narnia. The Magician's Nephew works better as a prequel when its revelations have dramatic weight, which requires knowing what it is revealing about. Publication order: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Magician's Nephew; The Last Battle.
What is The Screwtape Letters about?
The Screwtape Letters (1942) is Lewis's most original and most immediately engaging work of Christian apologetics — a series of letters from the senior devil Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood, advising him on the most effective techniques for tempting a young English Christian away from faith. The satirical reversal — the devils are the protagonists; virtue is the obstacle — makes Lewis's argument about the nature of temptation and the techniques of moral corruption more vivid than any conventional sermon. It is Lewis's most enduringly popular non-fiction work and his most immediately enjoyable for both religious and secular readers.
Is Narnia appropriate for adult readers?
The Narnia series was written for children but is read by adults with the same pleasure — indeed, with additional pleasures that become available to readers who bring a knowledge of Christian theology, Platonic philosophy, and Arthurian legend to the text. Lewis believed, with his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, that the best children's literature is literature that works for adults as well as children; Narnia fulfils this belief. The Last Battle, the final volume, has generated more sustained critical discussion than any other children's book in English — its account of the end of Narnia and what lies beyond it is Lewis's most theologically explicit and most aesthetically ambitious writing.
