Which order do you think the books should be read in?

What order?

  • Written (LWW, PC, VoDT...)

    Votes: 87 46.0%
  • Chronological (MN, LWW, HHB...)

    Votes: 89 47.1%
  • Other (Please specify)

    Votes: 13 6.9%

  • Total voters
    189
Order The Books Are To Be Read In??

I am yet to read the Narnia books (shame on me, i know :eek: ) But I have a set of them but am wondering what order they are to be read in? And will the films (if there are going to be any) be filmed in the same order?

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



Very, very worth reading. I actually think The Magician's Nephew is better if you read it after the rest - it makes more sense in the end.
 
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"The internecine strife between Lewis aficionados about the order of the Narnia books shows no signs of abating. In principle, both devout Chronologists and sincere Publicationists both allow that people should read the books in whatever order they chose. Yet both groups, in their hearts, believe that their order is best. Fisticuffs can easily develop, and the first excommunications and crusades cannot be far away. In an attempt to resolve this very serious issue, I offer my own, definitive, take on the problem.
1: Chronology vs Publication

C.S Lewis's famous series of children's stories were published between 1950 and 1956, in the following order:

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
2. Prince Caspian(1951)
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
4. The Silver Chair (1953)
5. The Horse and His Boy (1954)
6. The Magicians Nephew(1955)
7. The Last Battle (1956)

All current editions of the books, however, number them in a slightly different order:

1. The Magicians Nephew
2. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
3. The Horse and His Boy
4. Prince Caspian
5. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6. The Silver Chair
7. The Last Battle

This order reflects the chronological sequence of events in the books themselves.

Lewis expressed a mild preference for this second, chronological order. In a letter written in 1957 to an American boy named Laurence, he wrote the following:

'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.

Quoted in "Letters to Children"

On this last point, scholars who have written about Narnia agree: the books were not published in the order that they were written. The writing order appears to have been

1: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
2: (Abandoned version of Magicians Nephew)
3: Prince Caspian
4: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
5: Horse and His Boy
6: Silver Chair
7: Magicians Nephew
8: Last Battle

The case for reading the books in chronological order is the self-evident one: it makes more sense, particularly for children, to read a series of stories in the order in which they happened.

The case for reading the books in published order includes the following:


Given that most people read and re-read the books many times, does this sort of nit-picking matter? Almost certainly not. However, I believe that argument is not, in fact an argument about which order to read the books in, but about which order to think of the books in. The reason that the discussion occasionally becomes heated is that the camps are not merely arguing for a particular sequence, but for a particular interpretation.


Let us imagine two innocent readers, sitting down to approach 'Narnia' for the first time.

One takes down from the shelf a big, leather bound edition, with illuminated capitals and line numbers. The big red book is entitled The Chronicles of Narnia. There is a contents page listing 'Vol. 1: The Magicians Nephew, Vol.: 2 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' and so on. On hardback pages, the book would be shorter than Lord of the Rings or David Copperfield. Our reader would be quite clear that what he was embarking on was one long story, telling the story of an imaginary world from beginning to end.

Another virgin reader goes to a second hand bookshop and picks up a cheap paperback edition of Prince Caspian. There is an appalling, lurid fantasy picture on the cover, by someone who has obviously never read the book. The opening pages imply that it is a sequel of some kind, but he happily finds that it is quite self-contained. He goes back to the bookshop, and finds another book, a hardback, in a non-uniform edition. This is The Silver Chair. He comes away with the impression that Lewis wrote a number (he does not know how many, maybe thousands) of fairy stories, all nominally in a linked world and with a recurrent motif (Aslan) but otherwise, not very closely related. He gradually, and out of order, reads the whole lot—although he himself does not know that he is finished because he does not know what Lewis wrote.

It seems to me that these two people have had different reading experiences. They will be inclined to interpret the books in different ways.

Now, to my mind, every attempt to say 'you should read the books in this order, you should read them in that order' is an attempt to hierarchise the types of reading-experience, and thus to encourage a particular interpretation.

If you start out peering through the wardrobe into the snow, and are led across Narnia by the wonderfully anachronistic Mr Tumnus; if you first learn of Aslan from Mr and Mrs Beaver over high-tea and a warm fire, then you are likely to think of Narnia as 'that place that started out as a slightly whimsical fairy tale and gathered more and more religious significance as it went on'. If you first learn of Narnia during its creation, and first see Aslan when he is singing the world into being, you are more likely to think of it as a primarily theological, mythological narrative.

The very project of calling it The Chronicles of Narnia is bringing something outside of the text to bear on our readings. 'Read this,' it seems to say 'as the history of an imaginary world, not as a collection of fairy tales with a linked background.'

I do not say that the version of Narnia implied by The Chronicles and the sequential numbering is wrong: I say only that it is not neutral; it presupposes a theory about what Narnia is.


Books—all books—are complicated things, muttering at us in different contradictory voices, refusing to stay the same when we go back to them. Tying them down too much robs of them of the magic."


-Austin
 
You should read the books the first way that CSLewisFan said... trust me on this one... it's WAY more fun :D ...- that's my personel opinion.

CSLewisFan is right though, too.
 
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DeplorableWord said:
You should read the books the first way that CSLewisFan said... trust me on this one... it's WAY more fun :D ...- that's my personel opinion.

CSLewisFan is right though, too.

Yeah I'm reading them in the published order, because I would rather find out how it began near the end. Plus I love LWW ^_^ so i was like, why not start it it? :cool:
 
I think that the best order to read them in is chronologically, especially if you havent read them before, it would probably make more sense.

Once you have read them though just read them the way which suits you the best.
 
fist or second?

I read TMN first as that is what was recommended in the books and then onto LWW. However, i have been told that it is more a surprise to read LWW first so you find out how everythign came about afterwards.

How did read LWW first and is it a surpirse to find out how it all came about afterwards?

i think i wish i had of read LWW first..

x
 
It doesn't really matter if you read it closly.. you will get it anyway. But MN is the "creation" and LWW is the continuation xP
 
LWW is the most famous and the most familiar. If you read this and like it then I think it is good to start at the beginning and go through all the books in order (including a re-read of LWW). I can imagine that it would be really confusing to read them out of order, but LWW does stand out quite well.
 
This issue keeps cropping up in this forum. A lot of us old "narniacs" come out strongly in favor of publishing order:
Lion
Caspian
Dawn Treader
Silver Chair
Horse
Nephew
Battle


Interestingly, I got a guide to Narnia as a Christmas present, and learned that the publication order is almost the writing order - except that Horse was written before Silver Chair, but Lewis held back on publishing it because he wanted to keep the "Caspian triad" (Caspian, Dawn Treader, Silver Chair) together. This makes a lot of sense, because I've always though Chair a more developed work than Horse, and that explains why.
 
i actually would read them in this order.. only if it is your first time
1.the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe (because it was first and is easiest to understand without the other books)
2.the horse and his boy (since it takes place within the four pevensie children's era)
3.prince caspian (keeping in mind it was published just after the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe)
4. voyage of the dawn treader
5. silver chair
6. magician's nephew (i would go back and finally read the first one here because it would make much more sense after reading the others)
7. the last battle (the more you know about the other books, the better this one will be)

after you know the stories its way easier to go back and read them chronologically.. every time i re-read them i read them in the chronological order now)
 
Yeah, I'm definitely with PotW on this one. The publishing order is the way to go. Interesting info about Horse too.
 
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I think you should read them from front to back. Otherwise they make no sense at all, unless you have the Hebrew or Arabic translation in which case they make even less sense...to me.

Gang, it would be really awe inspiring if one phrase...Aslan's statement to Lucy...could appear in all the different translations all the different readers have. "When a willing victim who has committed no treachery gives his life in a traitor's stead, the table would crack and death itself starts working backwards."

Just a thought...
 
CSLewisFan said:
"The internecine strife between Lewis aficionados about the order of the Narnia books shows no signs of abating. In principle, both devout Chronologists and sincere Publicationists both allow that people should read the books in whatever order they chose. Yet both groups, in their hearts, believe that their order is best. Fisticuffs can easily develop, and the first excommunications and crusades cannot be far away. In an attempt to resolve this very serious issue, I offer my own, definitive, take on the problem.
1: Chronology vs Publication

C.S Lewis's famous series of children's stories were published between 1950 and 1956, in the following order:

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
2. Prince Caspian(1951)
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
4. The Silver Chair (1953)
5. The Horse and His Boy (1954)
6. The Magicians Nephew(1955)
7. The Last Battle (1956)

All current editions of the books, however, number them in a slightly different order:

1. The Magicians Nephew
2. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
3. The Horse and His Boy
4. Prince Caspian
5. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6. The Silver Chair
7. The Last Battle

This order reflects the chronological sequence of events in the books themselves.

Lewis expressed a mild preference for this second, chronological order. In a letter written in 1957 to an American boy named Laurence, he wrote the following:

'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.

Quoted in "Letters to Children"

On this last point, scholars who have written about Narnia agree: the books were not published in the order that they were written. The writing order appears to have been

1: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
2: (Abandoned version of Magicians Nephew)
3: Prince Caspian
4: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
5: Horse and His Boy
6: Silver Chair
7: Magicians Nephew
8: Last Battle

The case for reading the books in chronological order is the self-evident one: it makes more sense, particularly for children, to read a series of stories in the order in which they happened.

The case for reading the books in published order includes the following:


Given that most people read and re-read the books many times, does this sort of nit-picking matter? Almost certainly not. However, I believe that argument is not, in fact an argument about which order to read the books in, but about which order to think of the books in. The reason that the discussion occasionally becomes heated is that the camps are not merely arguing for a particular sequence, but for a particular interpretation.


Let us imagine two innocent readers, sitting down to approach 'Narnia' for the first time.

One takes down from the shelf a big, leather bound edition, with illuminated capitals and line numbers. The big red book is entitled The Chronicles of Narnia. There is a contents page listing 'Vol. 1: The Magicians Nephew, Vol.: 2 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' and so on. On hardback pages, the book would be shorter than Lord of the Rings or David Copperfield. Our reader would be quite clear that what he was embarking on was one long story, telling the story of an imaginary world from beginning to end.

Another virgin reader goes to a second hand bookshop and picks up a cheap paperback edition of Prince Caspian. There is an appalling, lurid fantasy picture on the cover, by someone who has obviously never read the book. The opening pages imply that it is a sequel of some kind, but he happily finds that it is quite self-contained. He goes back to the bookshop, and finds another book, a hardback, in a non-uniform edition. This is The Silver Chair. He comes away with the impression that Lewis wrote a number (he does not know how many, maybe thousands) of fairy stories, all nominally in a linked world and with a recurrent motif (Aslan) but otherwise, not very closely related. He gradually, and out of order, reads the whole lot—although he himself does not know that he is finished because he does not know what Lewis wrote.

It seems to me that these two people have had different reading experiences. They will be inclined to interpret the books in different ways.

Now, to my mind, every attempt to say 'you should read the books in this order, you should read them in that order' is an attempt to hierarchise the types of reading-experience, and thus to encourage a particular interpretation.

If you start out peering through the wardrobe into the snow, and are led across Narnia by the wonderfully anachronistic Mr Tumnus; if you first learn of Aslan from Mr and Mrs Beaver over high-tea and a warm fire, then you are likely to think of Narnia as 'that place that started out as a slightly whimsical fairy tale and gathered more and more religious significance as it went on'. If you first learn of Narnia during its creation, and first see Aslan when he is singing the world into being, you are more likely to think of it as a primarily theological, mythological narrative.

The very project of calling it The Chronicles of Narnia is bringing something outside of the text to bear on our readings. 'Read this,' it seems to say 'as the history of an imaginary world, not as a collection of fairy tales with a linked background.'

I do not say that the version of Narnia implied by The Chronicles and the sequential numbering is wrong: I say only that it is not neutral; it presupposes a theory about what Narnia is.


Books—all books—are complicated things, muttering at us in different contradictory voices, refusing to stay the same when we go back to them. Tying them down too much robs of them of the magic."


-Austin

WOW! It makes one think! very well written. but unfortunatley for me I bought the Chronicles of Narnia all together in one huge book, so I read them in the order they were published today. I almost wish i had read them in the order Mr.Lewis wrote them.
how did you read them? :cool:
 
cathyrh said:
It doesn't really matter if you read it closly.. you will get it anyway. But MN is the "creation" and LWW is the continuation xP

No, i was just asking if anyone had read it afterwards and discovered it a surpise etc...just a general conversation. I wasn't asking what i should read first..

x
 
Oh! Well in that case, I did read LWW about 5 years before any of the others so I couldn't remember details that well, which was kind of lucky otherwise I think I would have been a tad confused!
 
I read LWW first and then MN and I liked it better that way. It was fun to go back and find out what happened before. I don't think I would have enjoyed it the other way.
 
and again PUBLICATION ORDER my sister bought the book to read to her son and started in the "new order" and he lost intrest very fast. He didnt want to hear how the world was created!
Once you know the characters and love them then the creation becomes interesting but really there are many books that cant be "reordered" The Lord Of The Rings really if i have started with "The Silmarillion" i would have NEVER read the LOTR books. C.S Lewis was a smart man so if he wrote/published them in this order that is how they should stay. i dont care what some" i know everything in the world and i know better then the author" person said the order should be when the put them back in publication order i will buy them in hard back.
sorry to rant but as you can tell its touchy and im very pissed they did it
 
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