#185 in Classics
The Magician's Nephew
- 192
- Pages
- about 3.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Magician’s Nephew” works above all as an origin story: it shows how Narnia came into being and fills in the past of Aslan and the Witch. Some readers find the opening slow until Narnia appears, and some miss the enchantment of the series’ best-known volume. Short and hopeful, it serves as a way into the Chronicles or a look back for those who know them.
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 Magician's Nephew is a portal fantasy novel by British author C. S. Lewis, published in 1955 by The Bodley Head. It is the sixth published of seven novels in The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956). In recent editions, which sequence the books in the chronological order of the story, it appears as the first volume of the series. Like the others, it was illustrated by Pauline Baynes whose work has been retained in many later editions. The Bodley Head was a new publisher for The Chronicles, a change from Geoffrey Bles who had published the previous five novels.
Reading order · The Chronicles of Narnia
Full order & progress →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.7 across 1,279 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 90% of the weight and the score stays at 7.7 — the Classics average of 7.7 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.0 | 108 | 8% |
| Hardcover | 7.7 | 1.2K | 92% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Magician's Nephew?
It has 192 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 7.7 and 7.8, closest to this book.
