Which Narnia book first...?

[ASH]

QUESTION:

I have decided to read the Narnia Series by C.S. Lewis. My question is, which one do I start with. I have had some say that you should start with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; because its the one that most people read first and I will probably like it more. Others have told me to read The Magician's Nephew.

So which do I read first...
And why in your opinion..?

 

[afreed]

Order

QUESTION:

I have decided to read the Narnia Series by C.S. Lewis. My question is, which one do I start with. I have had some say that you should start with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; because its the one that most people read first and I will probably like it more. Others have told me to read The Magician's Nephew.

So which do I read first...

The reason there's debate on this is because the order of publication (and writing) is different than the chronological order of the books. <i>Wardrobe</i> was the first written and published, while <i>Nephew</i> was written later, but takes place earlier.
C.S. Lewis had this to say about reading order, in a letter written in 1957 to an American boy. (From the alt.books.cs-lewis FAQ.)

I think I agree with your order {i.e. chronological} 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 as 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.

So basically, you have the author's permission to read in any order you want. I'd say start with Nephew if you like your stories in order and aren't interested in, say, Lewis's development of the world. Start with Wardrobe if you're interested in seeing how Lewis did things, and emulating the original publication order.
And then read Lewis's Space Trilogy, which is also very good and has a clear order.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'd agree with the "Lion first!" suggestion.

Nephew is about origins, but Lion is the introduction to Narnia. Once you've been introduced, then you can read about where it all came from.

-Hyp.

 

[Skarp Hedin]

I find that I almost always prefer to read a series in publication order, because then you can not only get the story as the original readers (people who read them as they were published, that is) saw it, but you can watch how the author's writing changes.

Also, it can be a pain trying to figure out the chronological order of a long series (Cornwell's Sharpe's series, for example, or Dragonlance).

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I have a box set of all these books I got about 10 or 12 years ago...its over in another state. Hmm...I'm suddenly getting interested in reading them(don't remember them from the first time). Bah you people and your interesting me in books I can't reach!

 

[Hypersmurf]

Bah you people and your interesting me in books I can't reach!

You had your opportunity! Don't blame us for your procrastinatory ways!

-Hyp.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

You had your opportunity! Don't blame us for your procrastinatory ways!

-Hyp.

But I have to! Because its somehow all your fault! Because...yeah! I don't want to wait until April now...bah! Cruel ENWorlders*!


*...glad to see you're keeping with your job at least.

 

[s/LaSH]

It seems the majority is in favour of Lion first.

I've always wondered, though, what would happen if someone were exposed to a property intrachronologically rather than extrachronologically (mostly involving Star Wars, but in this case another out-of-sequence tale). If you want to be experimental, you could try The Magician's Nephew first... if you want to be like everyone else, you could try The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe.

I half advise Nephew first anyway, because it does follow on from there. Things develop as a direct result of Nephew, there's some character continuity between the two; it's not just random stories on a similar theme.

But that's just me, imagining a different path than the one I took... all those years ago. Narnia was pretty big for me in my preschool years, and it started with Lion.

 

[kingpaul]

Be perverse...start with the Last Battle and go backwards!

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

The original publication order was:

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

When HarperCollins gained the publication rights about 11 years ago, they renumbered the books in chronological order:

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

I've read the series both ways (publication order when I was about 10, again when I was about 18, and in chronological order a couple years ago). I prefer the original order, as some things that could be considered "spoilers" until later books are given away if read in chronological order. You can find good arguements online for reading the books both ways. There are even some people (I know one personally) who would tell you to read them in a completely different order from either publication or chronological, but I don't know why. One good arguement on the order of the books can be found here: http://www.rustyspell.com/welikemedia/narniabusiness.html