This would be one amazing find, as The Last Battle is my favorite book in the series.  A first edition of the book has been discovered by a pair of charity bookshop volunteers.  Christine and Robert Williams were sorting through a delivery of donations to the National Trust’s second-hand bookshop at Mottisfont and came across a copy of the book.  Small, hardcovered, complete with a beautifully illustrated dust jacket.  The book was published in 1956 and could be worth as much as £1,000.

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Andrew Skilleter is the artist behind the covers of the BBC radio editions of The Chronicles of Narnia.  He asked me to mention that he’s made available, by popular demand, a limited run of 250 of each title as special prints of his artwork.  If you missed it, we posted a story about the exhibition that is still going on, along with some of the art work, here: BBC Narnia Cover Art Exhibition UK.  The art is available to purchase at the artist’s website, here: Andrew Skelleter’s Narnia BBC Paintings.
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There’s an artist that has become quite well known for his redesigns of book covers.  Most notibly, the Harry Potter series.  Unfortunately it doesn’t appear that they’ll ever see publication, but that doesn’t mean we cannot hope that some of his designs will one day see print.  I had been watching his blog to see if he was ever going to do his take on The Chronicles of Narnia books.  Well, last weekend he posted them.  I’ve included a glimpse of one of the covers, as it is my favorite book in the series: The Last Battle.  You can see his art work on his blog (Narnia Redesign) or at his flickr account.

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Amazon.com has today announced the release of their new edition of Kindle. With that announcement comes new additions to the library of books available for Kindle, including many works written by C.S. Lewis.

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We’ve just received the sad news that the original illustrator of The Chronicles of Narnia has just passed away:

Wayne Hammond reports the death of Baynes at her home in Surrey. Pauline Baynes was the original illustrator of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series, as well as of Tolkien’s Farmer Giles of Ham (1948), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (1962), and Smith of Wootton Major (1967).

Read more .. Wikipedia Entry

Narnia expert Brian Sibley has written a blog entry about Pauline Baynes that you can read here:

Brian Sibley’s Blog on Pauline Baynes: Queen of Narnia and Middle-Earth

And note that obituaries will be appearing in The Times, The Telegraph, The Independent and The Guardian later in the week.

Kind regards,

Brian Sibley

Update 2:

Rem, from the Philippine Order of Narnians, sent us an update with links to the articles posted athe both the Independent and the Guardian:

I thought you’d like to know that, as Mr Sibley said they would, Pauline Baynes’ obituaries have already shown up at the Independent and the Guardian.

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Last month, we informed NarniaFans that CS Lewis’ secretary, Walter Hooper, would be auctioning off signed first edition copies of three of the Narnian Chronicles. We are delighted to report that the books were able to help raise £34,000.

The three Narnian books auctioned were The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Horse and His Boy, and The Last Battle . It was expected that each of the books would only take in £3,000. The Oxford Daily Mail reports that, ” The Voyage of the Dawn Treader raised £10,625; The Horse and his Boy £10,000; and The Last Battle raised £9,375.

The proceeds from the sale of this auction went to the renovation of the Oxford Oratory Church of St Aloysius. Eight other books by CS Lewis were auctioned off as well.

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A former secretary of Oxford author CS Lewis is giving away signed first editions of the author’s Narnia books to raise money to renovate a city church.

The Oxford Oratory Church of St Aloysius, in Woodstock Road, is set to receive the windfall thanks to the generosity of Walter Hooper.

The church is launching a £3m appeal to carry out renovation work and build a new chapel and student accommodation.

Mr Hooper, 77, who lives in North Oxford, briefly worked as CS Lewis’s private secretary in 1963, shortly before the author’s death.

After Lewis’s death, Mr Hooper devoted himself to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe author’s memory and co-wrote the author’s biography, and edited his letters and diaries.

He said: “I have kept these books close to me all these years but when this appeal came up, I wanted to do something.

“In a way it will be a wrench to part with the books but in another way I’m glad, because they might do some good.

“CS Lewis gave away two thirds of his income and it was wonderfully liberating to see a man who did not seem to amass wealth at all – he really was a good man.”

Mr Hooper will retain a copy of Lewis’s poetry volume Spirits in Bondage, because he still finds inspiration from the verses.

Mr Hooper has donated 11 CS Lewis titles, including three signed first editions – The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, The Horse And His Boy and The Last Battle.

All 11 books are estimated to sell for up to £3,000 each at auction in London next month, with the hammer price boosted by the release today of the movie version of Prince Caspian. The books will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in London on July 17.

This year marks the 110th anniversary of Lewis’s birth in Belfast on November 29, 1898.

Philip Berrington, books specialist for Sotheby’s, said: “With the film of Prince Caspian coming out, the timing for this auction couldn’t be better. The connection between Walter Hooper and CS Lewis makes these books very collectable.”

The Oxford Oratory was built in 1875. Redecoration will restore marble, stonework and stencilling of the original Victorian design.

A smaller chapel for Masses, pilgrimage groups and baptisms will be added, together with a small garden.

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The fantasy novel series from C. S. Lewis has sold over 100 million copies. And after the success of the first movie, audiences are ready for the sequel, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

We’re celebrating the release of the movie with a quiz and exclusive interviews with the cast. You could win the ultimate Narnia prize package, which includes a signed book from the cast, posters, action figures and more!

Put your Narnia skills to the test with our 50-question quiz, written by NarniaFans.com — the ultimate resource for everything Narnia.

Once you’ve mastered the quiz, enter for your chance to win an ultimate prize package from THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN and check out their exclusive interviews of the cast!

Parade.com Narnia Quiz

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At HarperCollins Childrens, they’ve added a new video feature and behind the scenes on the making of the Pop-up book. Here’s what you’ll find there:

Robert Sabuda invited us to visit his New York City studio for a behind-the-scenes look at his creative process. He talked with the book’s editor, Katherine Tegen, about his inspiration for the magic that springs off the pages of The Chronicles of Narnia Pop-up.

HarperCollins Childrens

Take a look at what really goes into designing the complex mechanics of a pop-up book. Robert Sabuda’s production sketches show the intricate details and special effects found in each spread of these hand-assembled books.

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The countdown to Walt Disney Pictures’ and Walden Media’s film ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ begins today with the release of THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA MOVIE TIE-IN EDITION. For the first time, readers can experience Narnia in a collectible edition featuring an 8-page, fold-out insert based on C. S. Lewis’s own timeline conceived for Narnia. The stunning cover artwork from ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ movie introduces a dashing new hero-actor Ben Barnes (’Stardust’) as Prince Caspian.

The full-color timeline, recreated from C. S. Lewis’s original and paired with Pauline Baynes’ classic full color illustrations for the first time, provides the key to the passage of time in Narnia and Earth by laying the two worlds side by side. Never before has C. S. Lewis’s timeline been included in a complete edition of all seven books of Narnia. Readers can now enjoy the beloved stories and use the timeline as a guide to orient themselves within the epic work.

This Spring the timeline will be expanded into NARNIA CHRONOLOGY: From the Archives of the Last King (April 1, 2008; $19.99), an interactive version of The Chronicles of Narnia. NARNIA CHRONOLOGY will include pop-ups, gatefolds, pull tabs and many other exciting features to tell the stories in a sweeping linear format as C. S. Lewis imagined it.

On May 16, 2008, audiences will be enthralled by the film, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.’ With THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA MOVIE TIE-IN EDITION and NARNIA CHRONOLOGY, readers will have the chance to experience Aslan’s world first, in their own imagination.

Clive Staples Lewis, known as Jack to his friends, was born in 1898. Lewis and his good friend J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, were part of the Inklings, an informal writers’ club that met at a local pub to discuss story ideas. Lewis’s fascination with fairy tales, myths, and ancient legends, coupled with inspiration drawn from his childhood, led him to write The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one of the best-loved books of all time. Six further books followed to become the immensely popular The Chronicles of Narnia. The final title in the series, The Last Battle, was awarded the Carnegie Medal, one of the highest marks of excellence in children’s literature.

HarperCollins Children’s Books is one of the leading publishers of children’s books. Respected worldwide for its tradition of publishing quality, award-winning books for young readers, HarperCollins is home to many timeless treasures-Charlotte’s Web, The Chronicles of Narnia, Goodnight Moon, Where the Sidewalk Ends and Where the Wild Things Are; and popular new classics-A Series of Unfortunate Events, Warriors and Fancy Nancy. HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers, one of the leading English language publishers in the world and a subsidiary of News Corporation . Headquartered in New York, HarperCollins has publishing groups in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australasia. You can visit HarperCollins Children’s Books at www.harpercollinschildrens.com and HarperCollins Publishers at www.harpercollins.com.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA MOVIE TIE-IN EDITION
Written by C. S. Lewis
Illustrated by Pauline Baynes
HarperEntertainment
Paperback / Ages: 10 and up / January 8, 2008 / ISBN: 978-0-06-123105-6 /
$21.99 / 6 x 9 /
767 pages with b & w illustrations and a full-color 8-page foldout

NARNIA CHRONOLOGY
From the Archives of the Last King
Based on the books by C. S. Lewis
Including full color illustrations by Pauline Baynes
HarperCollins Children’s Books
Paperback/ Ages: 8 and up / April 1, 2008 / ISBN: 978-0-06-124005-8 /
$19.99 / 10 1/4 x 11 3/4 /
32 full-color pages

www.harpercollinschildrens.com

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