Tales Before Narnia

In his acclaimed collection Tales Before Tolkien, Douglas A. Anderson illuminated the sources, inspirations, and influences that fired J.R.R. Tolkien's genius. Now Anderson turns his attention to Tolkien's colleague and friend C. S. Lewis, whose influence on modern fantasy, through his beloved Narnia books, is second only to Tolkien's own. In many ways, Lewis's influence has been even wider than Tolkien's. For in addition to the Narnia series, Lewis wrote groundbreaking works of science fiction, urban fantasy, and religious allegory, and he came to be regarded as among the most important Christian writers of the twentieth century. It will come as no surprise, then, that such a wide-ranging talent drew inspiration from a variety of sources. Here are twenty of the tributaries that fed Lewis's unique talent, among them: The Wood That Time Forgot: The Enchanted Wood, taken from a never-before-published fantasy by Lewis's biographer and friend, Roger Lancelyn Green, that directly inspired The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; E. Nesbit's charming The Aunt and Amabel, in which a young girl enters another world by means of a wardrobe; The Snow Queen, by Hans Christian Andersen, featuring the abduction of a young boy by a woman as cruel as she is beautiful; and many more, including works by Charles Dickens, Kenneth Grahame, G. K. Chesterton, and George MacDonald, of whom Lewis would write, I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master. Full of fascinating insights into Lewis's life and fiction, Tales Before Narnia is the kind of book that will be treasured by children and adults alike and passed down lovingly from generation to generation. INCLUDING SEVENTEEN MORE WORKS BY THE PROGENITORS OF MODERN FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION:Tegnér's Drapa by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Magic Mirror by George MacDonald Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué Letters from Hell: Letter III by Valdemar Thisted Fastosus and Avaro by John Macgowan The Tapestried Chamber; or, The Lady in the Sacque by Sir Walter Scott The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton by Charles Dickens The Child and the Giant by Owen Barfield A King's Lesson by William Morris The Waif Woman: A Cue-From a Saga by Robert Louis Stevenson First Whisper of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame The Wish House by Rudyard Kipling Et in Sempiternum Pereant by Charles Williams The Dragon's Visit by J.R.R. Tolkien The Coloured Lands by G. K. Chesterton The Man Who Lived Backwards by Charles F. Hall The Dream Dust Factory by William Lindsay Gresham