Around the time when the Narnia movies were produced, the publishers of the works (HarperCollins) made the disastrous decision to re-order the series in a new edition. HarperCollins decided that the series would be best read in chronological order of their events — so beginning with The Magician’s Nephew, and proceeding through The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; The Horse and His Boy; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; and The Last Battle. I highly recommend NOT reading the books in this sequence.
C.S. Lewis originally wrote and published the books in the following sequence: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Horse and His Boy; The Silver Chair; The Magicians Nephew; The Last Battle. This sequence is far superior for the following reasons:
- C.S. Lewis has written that his first vision of Narnia in his imagination was the lamp-post in the snow and the faun passing by it (an image described early in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe). This was what sparked his creation of that world, and as one reads The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, it’s clear that part of his task in that story is to introduce his readers to Narnia. It contains such details as why some animals talk and some don’t; it contains a number of homely and comforting moments of hospitality and welcome, which function not just to make the characters comfortable in the moment but to make the reader comfortable in the new world he is exploring. It is a far superior entrance to the world of Narnia to The Magicians Nephew.
- The original publication order has some groupings that are broken up or mangled by the new publication order. The arc of the first three books is “The Pevensies in Narnia”. The arc of the last three books is “The Beginning and the End of Narnia”. The Horse and His Boy sits between them as a tale of Narnia not focused on grand goings-on but on the smaller-scale workings of Aslan. The groups lend cohesion to the series.
- The Pevensies are the main protagonists of the series, so it makes no sense to begin with one of the stories where they are not featured (The Magicians Nephew).
- The Magician’s Nephew contains details that explain some of the mysteries from earlier in the series. As one reads it, the significance of those details is immediately apparent and it is a real joy for those details from earlier in the series that seemed arbitrary to suddenly have meaning. If you read The Magicians Nephew first, those details have no significance because you don’t know what they connect to, and then the mystery of those details in the previous books are ruined because you already have the explanation at the time that you read them.
After having read the series in its original order, I definitely think these can be some pleasure had by re-reading them in chronological order, but for one’s first exposure to the world and stories of Narnia, the original publication order is by far the superior experience.