Ex Carta

Lewis originally sketched the geography of Narnia for his own reference, and Baynes transformed these into the finished maps that appear as endpapers in Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Horse and His Boy, and The Silver Chair. Baynes maps of Narnia grew more detailed as Lewis’s saga developed and its geography expanded to regions such as Archenland, Calormen, the Lone Islands, and the Wild North. Writing to Baynes about her first redraft of Lewis’s original map, for Prince Caspian (1951), Lewis suggested that ‘the map should be more like a medieval map than an Ordnance Survey – mountains and castles drawn – perhaps winds blowing at the corners – and a few heraldic-looking ships, whales and dolphins in the sea.’

Unlike the cartography of Middle-earth – where the map precedes and structures the narrative – Narnia’s geography emerges unevenly across the sequence, expanding as required by the story. Narnia itself is a continent, surrounded by a nebulous body of water representing the edges of the known world (a useful conceit delimiting a secondary world, found elsewhere in this collection). The stories of the novels are focused on specific regions and a ‘large part of the Narnian continent remains unexplored by Lewis’.172 As per the author’s wish, its geography is suggestive rather than fixed, and its spaces are organised less by topographical logic than by narrative and symbolic function.

This reflects Lewis’s broader conception of imaginative fiction and myth. Lewis considered that the pleasure derived from the best stories was not simply the vicarious thrill of adventure, but ‘that derived from intuitive encounters’ with a deeper spiritual reality. Lewis thought about this ‘other world’ geographically, writing of ‘what reality may well be like at some more central region’. He saw myth, including the mythopoeia of Narnia as in fact a reflection of a deeper reality, rather than simple imaginative flight. Baynes’ maps of Narnia reflect this richly allegorical, visionary, and oneiric quality that continues to deeply resonate with his readers to this day.

The maps of Narnia, from Pauline Baynes’s early designs onward, provide a visual throughline for the saga. Their medieval compass roses and decorative borders subtly echo the moral allegory embedded within its fantastical world.

C. S. Lewis’s (1898–1963) seven-volume sequence, beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) and concluding with The Last Battle (1956), stands among the most beloved works of twentieth-century children’s literature. Blending fairy tale, myth, and Christian allegory, the books have sold over 120 million copies and been translated into more than forty languages. Pauline Baynes (1922–2008), already known for her collaboration with Tolkien in Father Giles of Ham (1949), was commissioned to illustrate Lewis’s series. Her detailed drawings, suffused with medieval and heraldic motifs, helped fix the imagery of Narnia in the popular imagination.

Before the Narnia stories, Lewis also wrote a science fiction series known as the Space Trilogy. The first of these, Out of the Silent Planet, was published in 1938, and featured a version of Mars called Malacandra, teeming with intelligent lifeforms. Lewis’s iteration of Mars was distinct from yet comparable to those of H. G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs, fictions emerging with Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell’s observations and speculations regarding the planet (represented in this collection).

Map of Narnia and adjoining lands, featuring as the endpapers for 'Prince Caspian, A Return to Narnia'

Cover for 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' (1950)

Title page and frontispiece illustration from 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe'

Cover for 'Prince Caspian' (1951)

Title page and frontispiece illustration for 'Prince Caspian'

Map of the Wild Lands of the North, featuring as the enpapers for 'The Silver Chair'

Cover for 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' (1952)

Map of The Bight of Calormen and The Great Eastern Ocean, featuring as the endpapers for 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'

Title page and illustration of the 'Dawn Treader' vessl

Cover for 'The Silver Chair' (1953)

Title page and illustration from 'The Silver Chair'

Cover for 'The Horse and His Boy' (1954)

Map of the Desert between Archenland and Tashbaan, featuring as the endpapers for 'The Horse and His Boy'

Title page and frontispiece illustration for 'The Horse and His Boy'

Cover for 'The Magician's Nephew' (1955)

Cover for 'The Last Battle' (1956)

Lewis originally sketched the geography of Narnia for his own reference, and Baynes transformed these into the finished maps that appear as endpapers in Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Horse and His Boy, and The Silver Chair. Baynes maps of Narnia grew more detailed as Lewis’s saga developed and its geography expanded to regions such as Archenland, Calormen, the Lone Islands, and the Wild North. Writing to Baynes about her first redraft of Lewis’s original map, for Prince Caspian (1951), Lewis suggested that ‘the map should be more like a medieval map than an Ordnance Survey – mountains and castles drawn – perhaps winds blowing at the corners – and a few heraldic-looking ships, whales and dolphins in the sea.’

Unlike the cartography of Middle-earth – where the map precedes and structures the narrative – Narnia’s geography emerges unevenly across the sequence, expanding as required by the story. Narnia itself is a continent, surrounded by a nebulous body of water representing the edges of the known world (a useful conceit delimiting a secondary world, found elsewhere in this collection). The stories of the novels are focused on specific regions and a ‘large part of the Narnian continent remains unexplored by Lewis’.172 As per the author’s wish, its geography is suggestive rather than fixed, and its spaces are organised less by topographical logic than by narrative and symbolic function.

This reflects Lewis’s broader conception of imaginative fiction and myth. Lewis considered that the pleasure derived from the best stories was not simply the vicarious thrill of adventure, but ‘that derived from intuitive encounters’ with a deeper spiritual reality. Lewis thought about this ‘other world’ geographically, writing of ‘what reality may well be like at some more central region’. He saw myth, including the mythopoeia of Narnia as in fact a reflection of a deeper reality, rather than simple imaginative flight. Baynes’ maps of Narnia reflect this richly allegorical, visionary, and oneiric quality that continues to deeply resonate with his readers to this day.