The year 2025 marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of one of the most successful children’s books of all time: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, the first volume in his seven-book series, the Chronicles of Narnia. It has been translated into over forty languages, has been adapted numerous times for cinema, stage, television, and radio, and every year still ranks as a global bestselling title in the fantasy genre.
“It all began with a picture.” That is how Lewis describes the origin of this classic tale. The whole imaginative process “began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood.” This picture had been in his mind’s eye since he was about sixteen years old. One day, when he was about fifty, he said to himself, “Let’s try to make a story about it” (“It all began with a picture,” Radio Times, 1960).
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