#112 in Classics
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
- 186
- Pages
- about 3.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
The first Narnia book to be published and still the usual way in: a short portal fantasy of under two hundred pages, light in tone, hopeful, and quick to reach its witch, its war and its crowns. Recent editions number it second, by Narnia’s own timeline, but it works perfectly as a beginning. At heart it is a book of childhood; adults meeting it for the first time do not always fall under its spell.
Worth knowing Published in October 1950, it is the first Narnia book Lewis wrote, although since 1994 editions have numbered it second, after the prequel The Magician’s Nephew, citing a letter in which Lewis told a young reader the chronological order was fine. Many readers still start here, as the first readers did. It is dedicated to Lewis’s goddaughter Lucy Barfield. The 2005 Disney film follows it closely.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a portal fantasy novel written by British author C. S. Lewis, published by Geoffrey Bles in 1950. It is the first published and best known of seven novels in The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956). Among all the author's books, it is also the most widely held in libraries. It was the first of The Chronicles of Narnia to be written and published, but is marked as volume two in recent editions that are sequenced according to the stories' internal chronology. Like the other Chronicles, it was illustrated by Pauline Baynes, and her work has been retained in many later editions.
Reading order · The Chronicles of Narnia
Full order & progress →- The Lion, the Witch, and the WardrobeThis book
7.97.9 / 10 - Prince Caspian
7.57.5 / 10 - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
7.87.8 / 10 - The Silver Chair
7.57.5 / 10 - The Horse and His Boy
7.57.5 / 10 - The Magician's Nephew
7.77.7 / 10 - The Last Battle
7.67.6 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.9 across 3,316 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 96% of the weight and the score stays at 7.9 — the Classics average of 7.7 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.3 | 121 | 4% |
| Hardcover | 7.9 | 3.2K | 96% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?
It has 186 pages — shorter than 98% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Classics — with scores between 7.8 and 8.0, closest to this book.
