The Magician's Nephew facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
The Magician's Nephew

Dust jacket of first edition
Author	C. S. Lewis
Illustrator	Pauline Baynes
Cover artist	Pauline Baynes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	The Chronicles of Narnia
Subject	The creation of Narnia
Genre	Children's fantasy novel, Christian literature
Publisher	The Bodley Head
Publication date	2 May 1955
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	183 (first edition) 41,062 words (US)
ISBN	978-0-00-671683-9 (Collins, 1998; full-colour)
OCLC	2497740
LC Class	PZ8.L48 Mag
Preceded by	The Horse and His Boy
Followed by	The Last Battle

The Magician's Nephew is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis. It was published in 1955. This book is the sixth one published in The Chronicles of Narnia series. However, in newer editions, it is placed as the first book. This is because it tells the very beginning of the Narnia story. Like the other books, it has drawings by Pauline Baynes.

This book is a prequel, meaning it tells what happened before the other stories. It shows how the magical world of Narnia was created by a lion named Aslan. It also explains how a lamp-post from London ended up in Narnia. The story begins in London in 1900. Two children accidentally travel to Narnia and are there when it is made. This happens 1,000 years before the events in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The story shows that Narnia and our world are just two of many worlds. It also explains where the White Witch came from. And it tells how the first human king and queen came to rule Narnia. C. S. Lewis started writing this book soon after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. He was inspired by a friend's question about the lamp-post. The book also has parts of Lewis's own life and explores ideas about good and evil.

What the Story is About

The story starts in London in the summer of 1900. Two children, Digory and Polly, meet while playing. They decide to explore the attics that connect their houses. But they open the wrong door and find Digory's Uncle Andrew in his study.

Uncle Andrew tricks Polly into touching a yellow magic ring. She disappears! He tells Digory that he has been doing magic. The rings let people travel between different worlds. Uncle Andrew makes Digory take another yellow ring to follow Polly. He also gives Digory two green rings so they can both come back.

Digory finds himself in a quiet woodland and sees Polly there. This woodland has many pools. Digory and Polly figure out that this wood is not a real world. It's like an "attic" that connects many different universes. Each pool leads to a different world. They decide to explore a new world before going home.

They jump into one of the pools. They land in a ruined city called Charn. Inside a broken palace, they see statues of old kings and queens. These statues change from looking kind to looking cruel. They find a bell with a hammer and a message telling them to ring it.

Polly tells Digory not to, but Digory rings the bell. This wakes up the last statue, a witch queen named Jadis. She had destroyed all life in Charn by speaking a terrible "Deplorable Word." She was the only one left and put herself into a magical sleep. Only someone ringing the bell could wake her.

The children realize Jadis is evil and try to run away. But she grabs onto them as they use their rings. She comes back to England with them. In England, Jadis finds that her magic powers don't work. But she is still super strong. She thinks Uncle Andrew is a bad magician. She makes him her servant and tells him to get her a carriage. She wants to conquer Earth.

Jadis and Uncle Andrew leave. She causes trouble by robbing a jewelry store in London. The police chase her carriage. She crashes near Digory's house. Jadis breaks off an iron rod from a nearby lamp-post. She uses it to fight the police and people watching.

Polly and Digory grab Jadis. They put on their rings to take her out of their world. Uncle Andrew, Frank the cab-driver, and his horse, Strawberry, are also touching them. So they all go too. In the Wood between the Worlds, Strawberry accidentally brings everyone into a dark, empty place.

Digory first thinks it's Charn, but Jadis knows it's a world not yet made. They all watch as the lion Aslan creates a new world. He sings, and stars, plants, and animals appear. Jadis is scared of his singing. She tries to kill Aslan with the iron rod. But it bounces off him. In the new world's ground, the rod grows into a lamp-post. Jadis runs away.

Aslan gives some animals the power to speak. He tells them to use their voices for good. Aslan tells Digory that he is responsible for bringing Jadis to Narnia. Digory must help protect Narnia from her evil. Aslan turns the cabbie's horse into a winged horse named Fledge. Digory and Polly fly on Fledge to a garden high in the mountains.

Digory's job is to take an apple from a tree in this garden. He must plant it in Narnia. At the garden, Digory sees a sign warning not to steal from the garden.

Digory picks an apple for his mission. Its strong smell tempts him. Jadis appears. She has eaten an apple to become immortal, which made her skin pale white. She tries to tempt Digory. She tells him to eat an apple and become immortal with her. Or, she says, he could steal one to take back to Earth to heal his dying mother.

Digory knows his mother would not want him to steal. But he hesitates. He sees through the Witch's trick when she suggests he leave Polly behind. The Witch leaves for the North. She makes fun of Digory for not eating the apple. Digory returns to Narnia and plants the apple. It quickly grows into a big tree.

Aslan explains how the tree works. Anyone who steals the apples gets what they want, but it makes them unhappy. Jadis got to live forever, but she is always miserable because of her evil heart. The magic apples now scare her. The apple tree will keep her away for many years. With Aslan's permission, Digory takes an apple from the new tree to heal his mother.

Aslan sends Digory, Polly, and Uncle Andrew back to England. Frank the cabbie and his wife, Helen (who Aslan brought from England), stay in Narnia. They become Narnia's first King and Queen. The Narnian creatures live in peace and joy for hundreds of years.

Digory's apple makes his mother well again. His father comes home from India. Digory and Polly stay friends for life. Uncle Andrew changes his ways and stops doing magic. But he still likes to tell stories about his adventures with the Witch. Digory plants the apple's core with Uncle Andrew's rings in his aunt's backyard in London. It grows into a large tree.

Years later, Digory's family inherits a country house. The apple tree blows down in a storm. Digory, now a grown-up professor, has its wood made into a wardrobe. This wardrobe is what starts the events in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Main Characters

• Digory Kirke: The boy who grows up to be the Professor in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
• Polly Plummer: Digory's friend and next-door neighbor.
• Mabel Kirke: Digory's mother.
• Andrew Ketterley: Digory's uncle, who dabbles in magic.
• Letitia Ketterley: Uncle Andrew's sister.
• Jadis: The Empress of Charn, who becomes the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
• Aslan: The powerful Lion who creates Narnia.
• King Frank: A cab driver who becomes the first king of Narnia.
• Queen Helen: King Frank's wife, the first queen of Narnia.
• Fledge: The winged horse, who used to be the cab-horse Strawberry.

How the Book Was Written

C. S. Lewis first planned to write only one Narnia book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. But a friend asked him how a lamp-post ended up in Narnia. This question made Lewis want to write The Magician's Nephew to find the answer. This book features a younger version of Professor Kirke from the first novel.

The Magician's Nephew was the hardest Narnia book for Lewis to write. The other six books were written between 1948 and 1953. But The Magician's Nephew took five years, from 1949 to 1954. He started in 1949 but stopped after 26 pages. He didn't work on it again for two years. This might be because the story had parts that were very close to his own life.

He went back to writing The Magician's Nephew in late 1950. He finished almost three-quarters of the book. Then he stopped again because a friend thought there was a problem with the story's structure. Finally, he finished the novel in early 1954.

Lewis first called the book "Polly and Digory". His publisher changed the title to The Magician's Nephew. This book is dedicated to "the Kilmer family."

Lewis's Life in the Story

Many parts of The Magician's Nephew are like C. S. Lewis's own life. Both Digory and Lewis were children in the early 1900s. Both wanted a pony. Both faced their mothers dying when they were young. Digory is separated from his father, who is in India. Lewis went to school in England after his mother died, while his father stayed in Ireland.

Lewis loved to read as a child, and Digory does too. Both were better with books than with numbers. Digory and Polly struggle with math when trying to find a house. Lewis failed his math entrance exam for Oxford University. Lewis remembered rainy summer days from his youth, just like Digory in the book. Also, Digory becomes a professor when he grows up. He takes in children during World War II, which Lewis also did.

The character of Andrew Ketterley is similar to a schoolmaster Lewis knew. Lewis thought this schoolmaster would make a good villain in a story. Ketterley is like him in age, looks, and how he acts.

Book Style

The Magician's Nephew is written in a lighter, more fun way than some other Narnia books. It often uses humor. This might be because Lewis, as a grown man, was looking back at his childhood with fondness. There are funny mentions of life in the old days, especially school life. Animals in Narnia also have funny conversations.

Jadis trying to take over London is shown as more funny than scary. The humor also comes from the difference between the evil empress and London life in the Edwardian era. It's also funny when she makes Uncle Andrew feel silly because he's not a powerful magician. This style is like the children's books by Edith Nesbit, which Lewis loved to read as a child.

Reading Order

The Magician's Nephew was first published as the sixth book in the Narnia Chronicles. Most books printed until the 1980s kept this order. But in 1980, HarperCollins published the series in the order of the events in the stories. This made The Magician's Nephew the first book.

A young fan named Laurence Krieg wrote to Lewis. He asked Lewis to decide if he or his mother was right about the reading order. Laurence thought the books should be read in story order, starting with The Magician's Nephew. His mother thought they should be read in publication order. Lewis wrote back, seeming to agree with Laurence. But he also said it might not matter much what order they are read in.

Some experts say that reading the books in the order they were published is better. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy Pevensie finds a wardrobe that leads to a forest and a mysterious lamp-post. This creates excitement about a new, unknown land. If you already know Narnia's origins from The Magician's Nephew, this surprise might be lost. Many scholars believe that The Magician's Nephew was written assuming readers already knew the first book.

What Inspired the Book

Milton's Paradise Lost

The special Garden in Narnia is surrounded by a "high wall of green turf." Tree branches hang over it. It has "high gates of gold, fast shut, facing due east." This garden is similar to how Milton described Eden in his poem Paradise Lost.

Jadis also acts like Satan from the same poem. She climbs over the garden wall, ignoring the rule to enter only by the gate. She then tries to trick Digory, just as Satan tricked Eve.

Some parts of Narnia's creation, like animals coming out of the ground, are also like parts of Paradise Lost.

The Garden of the Hesperides

Lewis once wrote about reading good poetry. He said it was like opening a cupboard and finding the Garden of the Hesperides. He used the idea of a cupboard leading to a new world in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The sacred Garden in The Magician's Nephew has many features of the Garden of the Hesperides from Greek myths. It is in the far West. It has a watchful guardian. A hero (Digory) is sent to get an apple from it, like Hercules. An evil woman (Jadis) steals another apple, like Eris.

Edith Nesbit

Lewis loved Edith Nesbit's children's books. The Magician's Nephew mentions these books as if their events were real. It talks about the time when "Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure." The Bastables were children in Nesbit's stories.

The Magician's Nephew is set in the same time and place as some of Nesbit's stories. It is also similar to Nesbit's The Story of the Amulet (1906). In that book, children in London find a magic amulet. Their father is away, and their mother is sick, just like Digory's family. They also bring an ancient queen to London, who causes a riot. This is very similar to what happens when Polly and Digory bring Queen Jadis to London.

J. R. R. Tolkien

The creation of Narnia might also have been influenced by Lewis's close friend J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion. That book also has a creation scene where music plays a big part.

Movies and Shows

Plays

Aurand Harris was a famous American writer of plays for children. He wrote a play based on The Magician's Nephew. It was first performed in 1984. A musical score was written for this play.

Erina Caradus also wrote a play for The Magician's Nephew. It was performed in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 2005.

Film

For a while, it was planned that The Magician's Nephew would be the next Narnia movie after The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010). However, in 2011, the movie company's contract with the C. S. Lewis estate ended.

In 2013, The C.S. Lewis Company announced a new agreement. They decided to make The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair next. They chose to follow the order the books were published in.

In 2018, Netflix announced a deal with The C.S. Lewis Company. Netflix will create new series and movies based on The Chronicles of Narnia.

TV

In 2003, the BBC made a 10-part TV version of the book. It was read by Jane Lapotaire. It was also shown with British Sign Language. This version was part of the TV series Hands Up! and was first shown on January 16, 2003. It was later shown again on CBBC and BBC Two.

See also

In Spanish: El sobrino del mago para niños