When i was a lad, i loved the Chronicles of Narnia books. Beginning with the first book in my box set, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, I proceded to read the next three books, “Prince Caspian”, “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” and “Silver Chair”, loving how the saga seemed to move us forward through Narnia’s history. I must admit to losing interest in the fifth book, “The Horse and His Boy”, as it seemed somehow irrelevant, dealing with a tale which took place in the midst of the first book, but was instantly eraptured with the series again with the sixth book “The Magician’s Nephew”.
In many ways, “The Magician’s Nephew” was my favorite. Not only did i love it for the story it told, but because it took place 40 years before the events of the first book, “TLTWATW”, and thus I got the see the creation of Narnia. It really made me marvel as I made the connections that events and people in this book, would live on to become fixtures of the earlier books in the series. I thought making the sixth book an origin of Narnia book helped to flesh out the series, and was made so much more enjoyable having the knowledge of what was to come.
And then of course, the whole thing came to a conclusion with the seventh book, “The Last Battle”.
So, I get seized by a desire to buy the collection again, and reread it. But everywhere I look, i can find that someone has decided, rather late in the game, that the books should be numbered in order of Narnia’s history, rather than publication date. Thus, TMN is 1st, LTWATW is 2nd, THAHB is 3rd, and so forth.
Personally, I think there is a lot to be said for these books to be numbered as they had been for decades before, in order of publication. I fear that the Magician’s Nephew is only most effective if read after “Lion, Witch and Wardrobe”.
Anyone with me on this one?