The Chronicles of Narnia: The Signature Edition - Hardcover

Lewis, C. S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061174262 ISBN 13: 9780061174261

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2006

Synopsis

Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures and epic battles between good and evil—what more could any reader ask for in one book? The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, written in 1949 by C. S. Lewis, has it all. But Lewis did not stop there.

Six more books followed, and together they became known as The Chronicles of Narnia.

For over fifty years, The Chronicles of Narnia have transcended the fantasy genre to become part of the canon of classic literature. Each of the seven books is a masterpiece, drawing the reader into a land where magic meets reality, and the result is a fictional world whose scope has fascinated generations.

Perfect for gift-giving or to add to your own collection, the signature edition presents all seven books—unabridged—in one magnificent volume. A lavishly illustrated collectible full-color map by the original artist for the series, Pauline Baynes, is included inside. This edition also contains excerpts from Beyond the Wardrobe, the official, indispensable guide to the classic fantasy series and its creator.

Deceptively simple and direct, The Chronicles of Narnia continue to captivate fans with adventures, characters and truths that speak to all readers, even more than fifty years after the books were first published.

About this title

About the Authors

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954, when he was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics in The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and have been transformed into three major motion pictures.

Pauline Baynes has produced hundreds of wonderful illustrations for the seven books in The Chronicles of Narnia. In 1968 she was awarded the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal for her outstanding contribution to children's literature.

From the Back Cover

Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures and epic battles between good and evil—what more could any reader ask for in one book? The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, written in 1949 by C. S. Lewis, has it all. But Lewis did not stop there.

Six more books followed, and together they became known as The Chronicles of Narnia.

For over fifty years, The Chronicles of Narnia have transcended the fantasy genre to become part of the canon of classic literature. Each of the seven books is a masterpiece, drawing the reader into a land where magic meets reality, and the result is a fictional world whose scope has fascinated generations.

Perfect for gift-giving or to add to your own collection, the signature edition presents all seven books—unabridged—in one magnificent volume. A lavishly illustrated collectible full-color map by the original artist for the series, Pauline Baynes, is included inside. This edition also contains excerpts from Beyond the Wardrobe, the official, indispensable guide to the classic fantasy series and its creator.

Deceptively simple and direct, The Chronicles of Narnia continue to captivate fans with adventures, characters and truths that speak to all readers, even more than fifty years after the books were first published.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Signature Edition

By C. Lewis

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2006 C. Lewis
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0061174262

The Magician's Nephew

Chapter One
The Wrong Door

This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. It is a very important story because it shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia first began.

In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road. In those days, if you were a boy you had to wear a stiff Eton collar every day, and schools were usually nastier than now. But meals were nicer; and as for sweets, I won't tell you how cheap and good they were, because it would only make your mouth water in vain. And in those days there lived in London a girl called Polly Plummer.

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Chapter One
Lucy Looks Into the Wardrobe

Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids. They were sent to the house of an old Professor who lived in the heart of the country, ten miles from the nearest railway station and two miles from the nearest post office. He had no wife and he lived in a very large house with a housekeeper called Mrs. Macready and three servants. (Their names were Ivy, Margaret and Betty, but they do not come into the story much.) He himself was a very old man with shaggy white hair which grew over most of his face as well as on his head, and they liked him. . .

The Horse and His Boy

Chapter One
How Shasta Set Out On His Travels

This is the story of an adventure that happened in Narnia and Calormen and the lands between, in the Golden Age when Peter was High King in Narnia and his brother and his two sisters were King and Queens under him.

In those days, far south in Calormen on a little creek of the sea, there lived a poor fisherman called Arsheesh, and with him there lived a boy who called him Father. The boy's name was Shasta. On most days Arsheesh went out in his boat to fish in the morning, and in the afternoon he harnessed his donkey to a cart and loaded the cart with fish and went a mile or so southward to the village to sell it. If it had sold well he would come home in a moderately. . .

Prince Caspian

Chapter One
The Island

Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, and it has been told in another book called The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe how they had a remarkable adventure. They had opened the door of a magic wardrobe and found themselves in a quite different world from ours, and in that different world they had become Kings and Queens in a country called Narnia. While they were in Narnia they seemed to reign for years and years; but when they came back through the door and found themselves in England again, it all seemed to have taken no time at all. At any rate, no one noticed that they had ever been away, and they never told anyone except one very wise grown-up.

That had all happened a year ago, and now all. . .

The Voyage of The Dawn Treader

Chapter One
The Picture in the Bedroom

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and masters called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none. He didn't call his Father and Mother "Father" and "Mother," but Harold and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotalers and wore a special kind of underclothes. In their house there was very little furniture and very few clothes on beds and the windows were always open.

Eustace Clarence liked animals, especially beetles, if they were dead and pinned on a card. He liked books if they were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools.

The Silver Chair

Chapter One
Behind The Gym

It was a dull autumn day and Jill Pole was crying behind the gym.

She was crying because they had been bullying her. This is not going to be a school story, so I shall say as little as possible about Jill's school, which is not a pleasant subject. It was "Coeducational," a school for both boys and girls, what used to be called a "mixed" school; some said it was not nearly so mixed as the minds of the people who ran it. These people had the idea that boys and girls should be allowed to do what they liked. And unfortunately what ten or fifteen of the biggest boys and girls liked best was bullying the others. All sorts of things, horrid things, went on which at an ordinary school would have been found out and stopped in half. . .

The Last Battle

Chapter One
By Caldron Pool

In the last days of Narnia, far up to the west beyond Lantern Waste and close beside the great waterfall, there lived an Ape. He was so old that no one could remember when he had first come to live in those parts, and he was the cleverest, ugliest, most wrinkled Ape you can imagine. He had a little house, built of wood and thatched with leaves, up in the fork of a great tree, and his name was Shift. There were very few Talking Beasts or Men or Dwarfs, or people of any sort, in that part of the wood, but Shift had one friend and neighbor who was a donkey called Puzzle. At least they both said they were friends, but from the way things went on you might have thought Puzzle was more like Shift's servant than his friend. He did. . .

Continues...

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Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061174262
• ISBN 13: 9780061174261
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Baynes Pauline
• Number of pages: 800