# Chronicles of Narnia



## Joseph Scibbe (Dec 12, 2010)

What order should the CoN series be read in. I am looking to buy them for my Kindle but don's know which order in which to purchase them.


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## au5t1n (Dec 12, 2010)

_The Magician's Nephew_ is the first one in chronological order of events, though not the first one written.


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## KMK (Dec 12, 2010)

I would try reading one before you buy all of them. I barely made it through The Wardrobe.


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## Wannabee (Dec 12, 2010)

I don't know if I ever read through any of them. I did enjoy the movies though. 

[video=youtube;LuGUVkO0cRM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuGUVkO0cRM[/video]


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## TaylorOtwell (Dec 12, 2010)

I would read through them in the published order: Lion, Prince, Dawn Treader, Silver Chair, Horse and His Boy, Magician, and Last Battle. I definitely wouldn't read Magician's Nephew first, as it explains some things about the earlier books that make it even more interesting. I think it would lose its "coolness" if you read it first.

My favorite was Dawn Treader by far (looking forward to seeing the movie!). Least favorite was Prince Caspian. It's a fun series... enjoy!


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## Beoga (Dec 12, 2010)

TaylorOtwell said:


> I would read through them in the published order: Lion, Prince, Dawn Treader, Silver Chair, Horse and His Boy, Magician, and Last Battle. I definitely wouldn't read Magician's Nephew first, as it explains some things about the earlier books that make it even more interesting. I think it would lose its "coolness" if you read it first.
> 
> My favorite was Dawn Treader by far (looking forward to seeing the movie!). Least favorite was Prince Caspian. It's a fun series... enjoy!


 
I actually read Nephew first and it was my favorite, but as a kid my mom read Wardrobe to my brother and me so I was familiar with that story. I really liked reading the books in chronological order. Caspian was easily my least favorite too.


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## Tim (Dec 13, 2010)

This is the chronological order, which I recommend:

Magician's Nephew
Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian
Voyage of Dawn Treader
Silver Chair
Last Battle


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## LawrenceU (Dec 13, 2010)

I would agree with Taylor's advice on this one. All of my professors in university who dealt with Lewis' works recommended that same order as well. Reading The Magician's Nephew first removes a great deal of the mystery of the other books, and you will not fully understand the depth of 'Nephew' if it is read first. There is actually a great deal in that book that is only properly understood after the others.

Lewis never really stressed an order, by the way. He didn't start out to write a series. Harper Collins takes a bit of license when it states in its 1994 editions that their reordering was according to Lewis' design/design.


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## JBaldwin (Dec 13, 2010)

I can't count the number of times I've read the entire series, and I'm going to agree with Lawrence and Taylor on the order, probably because I read them first in that order. When reading to my children, we started with _The Magicians Nephew _, and my youngest still loves that one the most. My favorite for a long time was _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_, and still think it's one of the best of the series. Having read the books so many times, I tend to have favorite parts of each book. The only one I didn't care much for was _"The Horse and His Boy"_.

---------- Post added at 07:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:28 AM ----------

Years ago, when I was in school (living in the dorm), a friend brought me the entire series to read while I was laid up in bed sick for a week. I read all of them in order.


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## Joseph Scibbe (Dec 13, 2010)

Sorry to add more work but if you could note your choices in the new poll to make the results easier to read that would be great.


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## py3ak (Dec 13, 2010)

LawrenceU said:


> Lewis never really stressed an order, by the way.



He didn't care much, but in at least one letter he does recommend reading them in chronological order. Of course, he also authorized fan fiction in a letter, so it's an open question how much weight to give that.


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## SRoper (Dec 13, 2010)

Aren't there two different published orders? I thought that until recently the US order was different than the UK order.


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## JBaldwin (Dec 13, 2010)

As I understand it, the UK version is published in chronological order and the US version starts with the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.


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## Matthias (Dec 14, 2010)

I would not read any of them. C.S. Lewis embraced a gospel and worldview that was far from reformed confessional Christianity. Here is an article from my Church's website worth considering Some things you should know about C. S. Lewis | Penticton Free Presbyterian Church see also "C.S. Lewis - A Bridge to Rome" Published by the Canadian Protestant League. Even from the early 1960's Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones warned that Lewis had a defective view of Salvation and was an opponent of the substitutionary and penal view of the atonement (Christianity Today, Dec 20, 1963)

Just my 2 cents


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## SolaScriptura (Dec 14, 2010)

Read them in published order. That way you read things in the order in which Lewis thought them. (I like getting an insight into the thought processes of folks, and reading things in the order in which they produced them is one way to do that.)


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## Phil D. (Dec 14, 2010)

Matthias said:


> I would not read any of them. C.S. Lewis embraced a gospel and worldview that was far from reformed confessional Christianity. Here is an article from my Church's website worth considering Some things you should know about C. S. Lewis*|*Penticton Free Presbyterian Church see also "C.S. Lewis - A Bridge to Rome" Published by the Canadian Protestant League. Even from the early 1960's Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones warned that Lewis had a defective view of Salvation and was an opponent of the substitutionary and penal view of the atonement (Christianity Today, Dec 20, 1963)
> 
> Just my 2 cents


 
I think most Reformed folk would agree that one should not turn to Lewis to learn theology _per se_. However, many Reformed folk that I know do think one can still benefit from reading many things that he wrote. The founder/leader of our local C.S. Lewis Society is in fact a solid Reformed pastor. I have attended a couple gatherings, and gleaned a lot of valuable things from them. I know that I personally profited tremendously from reading _Mere Christianity _at a particularly difficult period in my spiritual journey.


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## JonathanHunt (Dec 14, 2010)

If you are reading for the first time, read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe first. Re-reading, you might do it chronologically, but I think it is more fun this way, and you get a lot more of an 'ahhhh-oooooh' factor when reading the Magician's Nephew.


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## Skyler (Dec 14, 2010)

JBaldwin said:


> I can't count the number of times I've read the entire series, and I'm going to agree with Lawrence and Taylor on the order, probably because I read them first in that order. When reading to my children, we started with _The Magicians Nephew _, and my youngest still loves that one the most. My favorite for a long time was _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_, and still think it's one of the best of the series. Having read the books so many times, I tend to have favorite parts of each book. The only one I didn't care much for was _"The Horse and His Boy"_.


 
Really? The Horse and His Boy was my favorite. Partly because I had a dramatized version on tape that I listened to over and over and over again when I was a kid. =)


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## he beholds (Dec 14, 2010)

Matthias said:


> I would not read any of them. C.S. Lewis embraced a gospel and worldview that was far from reformed confessional Christianity. Here is an article from my Church's website worth considering Some things you should know about C. S. Lewis*|*Penticton Free Presbyterian Church see also "C.S. Lewis - A Bridge to Rome" Published by the Canadian Protestant League. Even from the early 1960's Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones warned that Lewis had a defective view of Salvation and was an opponent of the substitutionary and penal view of the atonement (Christianity Today, Dec 20, 1963)
> 
> Just my 2 cents


 Do you not read fiction?


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## Semiomniscient (Dec 14, 2010)

I agree with those who've said to read in published order. Rereading in chronological order is not a bad idea. But after zipping through them fairly recently, I found that I didn't care for them very much at all anymore.


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## TimV (Dec 14, 2010)

I saw the Voyage of the Dawn Treader yesterday. Sickening.


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## py3ak (Dec 14, 2010)

SolaScriptura said:


> Read them in published order. That way you read things in the order in which Lewis thought them. (I like getting an insight into the thought processes of folks, and reading things in the order in which they produced them is one way to do that.)


 
It's a little more complicated than that: they were not published in the exact order in which they were written.


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## fredtgreco (Dec 14, 2010)

TimV said:


> I saw the Voyage of the Dawn Treader yesterday. Sickening.


 What was bad about it?


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## SolaScriptura (Dec 14, 2010)

TimV said:


> I saw the Voyage of the Dawn Treader yesterday. Sickening.


 
?? Please explain!


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## N. Eshelman (Dec 14, 2010)

> Here is an article from my Church's website worth considering



My favorite paragraph. Moralism at it's finest! 



> While awareness of Lewis’s confused Biblical perspective is of primary importance, one cannot ignore his tobacco addiction (Lindskoog, p. 187), pub frequenting, relationship with life-long mentor Roman Catholic nun, Sister Penelope, and even his questionable marriage of convenience late in life to American author Joy Davidman. Then, there is the use of profanity [including the Lord’s Name] in his allegory The Great Divorce, written fourteen years after his conversion...


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## TimV (Dec 14, 2010)

Two kids brought to a fantasy land where everyone bows down to them as high King and Queen, and they even get a pet lion, who tells them he brought them to Narnia so they could learn more about him than they could in the boring world they come from. The pet lion tells them that in the boring world he's known by another name (Jesus) and knowing him as a pet lion will allow them to understand Jesus better.


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## LawrenceU (Dec 14, 2010)

Hey, Tim. Have you read the books? In them Aslan is anything but a pet lion. One must also remember that Lewis was not a theologian. He was a professor of literature who specialised in Medieval Lit. The books were not written as a systematic and should never be taken as such. His theology was a good bit skewed, but I do believe he was a Christian. The sad fact is that Lewis, by many of his fans today, is taken to be much more than he ever was or claimed. The Narnia series in particular is elevated to a position that I believe he would have decried.


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## py3ak (Dec 14, 2010)

I'm a little sickened that Tim went to the movies on a Monday. How decadent!

But here is a review which confirms my decision not to watch it:
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader doesn't even have funny dufflepuds. - By John Swansburg - Slate Magazine



> ...the screenwriters introduce a confusing wrinkle: Caspian and company must locate and unite seven swords, lest a strange, green, gaseous evil be loosed throughout Narnia.


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## TimV (Dec 14, 2010)

My mom paid for me and the kids, Ruen, so since the money didn't come out of my pocket it was moral.

Lawrence, I read the books as a kid, but my comment was directed specifically about the movie.


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## SolaScriptura (Dec 14, 2010)

TimV said:


> Two kids brought to a fantasy land where everyone bows down to them as high King and Queen, and they even get a pet lion, who tells them he brought them to Narnia so they could learn more about him than they could in the boring world they come from. The pet lion tells them that in the boring world he's known by another name (Jesus) and knowing him as a pet lion will allow them to understand Jesus better.


 
Whew! Your problem is with the idea of the movie, not the movie itself. There for a minute I was thinking it had terrible acting, lame story and character development, and antiquated special effects.


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## py3ak (Dec 14, 2010)

TimV said:


> My mom paid for me and the kids, Ruen, so since the money didn't come out of my pocket it was moral.



Oh well, if it was a family activity....


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## LawrenceU (Dec 14, 2010)

Hmm. That review makes me want to lovingly smack some heads. I thought that after the uproar over the serious departures in _Caspian_ that the screenwriters would have learned not to introduce useless Hollywood stuff.

We will be seeing because I promised my daughter that it would be her Christmas present. She is a Narnia expert of sorts. I will have to post her review when she lets me know.


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## cih1355 (Dec 15, 2010)

Unashamed 116 said:


> What order should the CoN series be read in. I am looking to buy them for my Kindle but don's know which order in which to purchase them.


 
I have the one-volume edition of the CoN series. According to the title page, Lewis recommends that _The Magician's Nephew _be read first.


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## SRoper (Dec 15, 2010)

It's been some time since I've read them, but doesn't the Magician's Nephew start out assuming you know about Narnia while the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe introduce you to Narnia? Chronological order just doesn't seem very important from a storytelling perspective, especially when the books weren't written that way.


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## Matthias (Dec 15, 2010)

he beholds said:


> Matthias said:
> 
> 
> > I would not read any of them. C.S. Lewis embraced a gospel and worldview that was far from reformed confessional Christianity. Here is an article from my Church's website worth considering Some things you should know about C. S. Lewis*|*Penticton Free Presbyterian Church see also "C.S. Lewis - A Bridge to Rome" Published by the Canadian Protestant League. Even from the early 1960's Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones warned that Lewis had a defective view of Salvation and was an opponent of the substitutionary and penal view of the atonement (Christianity Today, Dec 20, 1963)
> ...


 
I get all the fiction I need from the newspaper and evening news


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## Joseph Scibbe (Dec 15, 2010)

I bought a copy at Barnes and Noble of the entire series and it claims that it is laid out in the order Lewis preferred which is: Nephew, Lion, Horse, Prince, Voyage, Silver, Battle.


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