The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Bles, 1950.
First edition. 8vo. Original green cloth in pictorial dustwrapper designed by Pauline Baynes. Colour frontispiece and numerous line drawings in text, all by Pauline Baynes. A near fine copy, with usual fading to the cloth through the dustwrapper, in a near fine dustwrapper, which just shows trivial wear to the head of the spine and upper corners with a tiny nick to the upper panel. An unusually clean and well preserved example of this fragile book.
The author's most famous work and landmark of children's fiction. The inspiration for this book came in 1939 with some evacuated children staying at The Kilns. One of them showed an interest in an old wardrobe and asked if she might go inside it to see if there were anything behind it. Either the girl or Lewis may have been influenced by Edith Nesbit's The Aunt and Abel, in which a magic world is entered via a wardrobe in a spare room. Certainly, Lewis had enjoyed Nesbit's books as a child.
"From the very beginning, despite all the reviewers' apprehensions, children loved the Narnia stories... More than any stories that I can think of, they appeal to all sorts of children. It is easy to find children who are left cold by Alice in Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows; it is rare to find those who enjoy reading yet are not delighted by the Narnia stories." (George Sayer - Jack, C. S. Lewis and His Times)
Stock ID: 32551
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