If you buy a set of the Chronicles now, the seven books are being packaged and promoted in chronological order. The first book is now THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW. It outrages me; I am "het up" in its truest ranting and stomping sense.
There is a great essay about the Chronicles order debate here. The author is obviously a Narnia-phile, and it's worth reading because he/she makes some valid points.
And, yeah yeah yeah... every reader has a different experience, and what if a person picks up one of the individual books in a store and reads it completely out of order, and it's futile to try and adhere to one order or another.
That being said, I'm going on the record right now -- I am a "Publicationist", and yes, the order does matter.
Following is the order in which the books were published.
1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
2. Prince Caspian (1951)
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
4. The Silver Chair (1953)
5. The Horse and His Boy (1954)
6. The Magician's Nephew (1955)
7. The Last Battle (1956)
This is the order in which the books are now packaged.
1. The Magician's Nephew
2. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
3. The Horse and His Boy
4. Prince Caspian
5. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6. The Silver Chair
7. The Last Battle
My thoughts:
The "new" order represents a roughly "more chronological" timeline of the events that took place in Narnia. Some people argue that, since these are children's books, it is helpful for children to read the whole story from beginning to end. But, the storylines of the individual books do not rely on chronology for continuity. Further, I think that argument is insulting to the legions of children that were perfectly capable of understanding and loving the books for 40 years -- before the new order.
And, the Chronicles are not chronologically clean and convenient (like the Harry Potter series, for example, which occurs in consecutive school years). For example, LION spans decades, and HORSE takes place over just a couple years, but technically alongside LION as a separate story within that timeline. There are several other temporal intersections and overlaps throughout the series. No order could be perfectly chronological. There is no need for HORSE to follow LION, none at all.
CASPIAN should immediately follow LION. When it does, it better helps the reader understand the way human children move between the worlds, which is crucial for VOYAGE and SILVER CHAIR. I mean, the full title is PRINCE CASPIAN: RETURN TO NARNIA.
My favorite point from the essay I linked above is that when the books are read in the order they were published, they are fairy tales with a common background. When the books are read in the new order, they become de facto something bigger and heavier and more important -- the Origin and History of a World. And, the new order makes a stronger case for a directly Biblical allegory of Christ. That was never C.S. Lewis' plan, as he has stated on record.
In fact, C.S. Lewis has said he never meant the books to be a series. He wrote LION and thought he was done, and then wrote CASPIAN and thought he was done, and then wrote VOYAGE and thought he was done. Having been written first and as a single title, LION is self-contained, and in fact was often the only book of the series most people had read (before this new order, of course). LION is the framework for the other six stories. You don't have to read the six subsequent books to understand Narnia -- which is why LION should remain the first in the series. (Thank [deity$] that the powers that be are making the Lion movie first.)
Conversely, MAGICIAN is more of a prequel than anything. It does not adequately prepare the reader for what comes later. The dip into quantum physics of MAGICIAN requires a suspension of disbelief that relies on the reader already clearly understanding the time continuum of Narnia in relation to that of Earth -- which is cumulatively illustrated in LION, CASPIAN, VOYAGE and SILVER CHAIR.
MAGICIAN ruins the surprise of the magic within the wardrobe, and tinkers with the reader's introduction to Aslan. I think that's all I really need to say about that.
Imagine if it were discovered, in 2054, that J.K. Rowling made some notes before writing HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE, notes in which she brainstormed ideas for the different books, and in those notes it posits that Harry has a relationship with Sirius Black before he ever goes to Hogwarts? And then the publishers in the future decided to put PRISONER OF AZKABAN as Book 1?
Of course this is a stretch of an analogy, since I've already pointed out that the chronology of HP is vastly more structured. But consider what that would mean for the legions of new readers, who would then not start with PHILOSOPHER'S, not meet the characters in the same way you did, not get to know Hogwarts and the magical world of wizardry with the fresh eyes of Harry? That's what is happening here.
In the early 1950's, children all over the globe waited with bated breath for the latest Narnia book every year, just like we do today for Harry Potter. They didn't get a choice back then. To publish the Chronicles in a new, arbitrary order is to say that the way they discovered Narnia is not as good as the way children will today. It eliminates the opportunity for a multi-generational shared experience of reading.
And to say that MAGICIAN should be the first story is like saying that C.S. Lewis did it wrong. If MAGICIAN were where the story was supposed to begin, it would have been the first to occur to the author. It wasn't. LION came first in 1950, and so it should remain first today.
The series is a masterpiece of children's literature that invites every adult to return to a simpler time, when the joy of wonder was real.
Given their importance, these books should be read in the original order, period.
By changing the order, the current copyright owner spoils the charm of discovering the origins of key plot elements and arrogantly presumes to meddle with this great author's delightful work.
Ownership of a copyright does not imply the right to change history or alter in any way a major work that has found a sacred place in the hearts of millions and will continue to speak to readers young and old for generations to come.
In this case, because the author is no longer alive to protect his work, copyright should be stewardship, protection and trust...values found in Narnia, and here with us, so long as we remember our own journey into the wardrobe.
