Writing
Lewis had originally intended only to write the one Narnia novel, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. However, when Roger Lancelyn Green asked him how a lamp post came to be standing in the midst of Narnian woodland, Lewis was intrigued enough by the question to attempt to find an answer by writing The Magician's Nephew, which features a younger version of Professor Kirke from the first novel.
The Magician's Nephew seems to have been the most challenging Narnia novel for Lewis to write. The other six Chronicles of Narnia were written between 1948 and 1953, The Magician's Nephew was written over a six year period between 1949 and 1954. He started in the summer of 1949 after finishing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but came to a halt after producing 26 pages of manuscript and did not resume work until two years later. This may be as a result of the autobiographical aspects of the novel, as it reflects a number of incidents and parallels very close to his own experiences.
He returned to The Magician's Nephew late in 1950, after completing The Silver Chair. He managed to finish close to three quarters of the novel, and then halted work once again after Roger Green, to whom Lewis showed all his writing at the time, suggested there was a structural problem in the story. Finally he returned to the novel in 1953, after finishing The Last Battle in the spring of that year and completed early in 1954.
Lewis originally titled the novel "Polly and Digory"; his publisher changed it to The Magician's Nephew. This book is dedicated to "the Kilmer family".
Read more about this topic: The Magician's Nephew
Famous quotes containing the word writing:
“I can hardly bring myself to caution you against drinking, because I am persuaded that I am writing to a rational creature, a gentleman, and not to a swine. However, that you may not be insensibly drawn into that beastly custom of even sober drinking and sipping, as the sots call it, I advise you to be of no club whatsoever.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“I thank you for your letter. I was very glad to get it; and I am glad again to write to you. However slow the steamer, no time intervenes between the writing and the reading of thoughts, but they come freshly to the most distant port.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is wrong to be harsh with the New York critics, unless one admits in the same breath that it is a condition of their existence that they should write entertainingly about something which is rarely worth writing about at all.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)