The first comprehensive image of Narnia, by the artist who illustrated the works of Lewis and Tolkien.

The Books

“This is the land of Narnia,” said the Faun, “where we are now; all that lies between the lamp-post and the great castle of Cair Paravel on the eastern sea”. A world of talking animals, mythical creatures and magic, Narnia is the setting for one of literature’s most beloved children’s series. Written between 1950 and 1956, C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ consist of seven novels telling the age-old tale of good versus evil. While Dufflepuds, Marsh-wiggles, enchanted wardrobes, fantastical castles and Turkish delight add to the charm of the stories, it is the great allegory at its heart that makes ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ an enduring and profound work of literature. Indeed, the books have remained in continuous print since their publication, with translations into 47 languages and over 120 million copies sold.

Lewis dedicated the first book to his goddaughter Lucy Barfield and gave her name to the fictional Lucy Pevensie, who, along with her siblings Peter, Susan, and Edmund, figures as a character in the series.

“A whole generation has grown up of people who read the Narnia stories in childhood, and have passed on the secret to their own children in turn. Whatever Lewis’s future reputation as a theologian or literary critic, he is certain of a place among the classic authors of children’s books” (Wilson, p220).

The mapmaker, Pauline Baynes, however, barely profited in this success as she sold her work to Lewis’s publishers for a flat fee of just £100 per book.

The Map
At Lewis’ request, his novels were illustrated by Pauline Baynes, whose drawings he had seen in the lesser-known works of his good friend, J.R.R. Tolkien. Baynes’s colourful, whimsical and evocative style is the perfect accompaniment to the writings of both authors, appealing to both the childish and adult eye. The present map is Baynes’s first attempt to interweave the stories and lore of Narnia into a single comprehensive image.

The land of Narnia occupies the left half of the sheet, with its various regions labelled, and sites such as Cair Paravel and Beaver’s Dam are illustrated in small round cartouches. Mountains, rivers and forests appear, with the Lamp Post shining out from the centre of the “Lantern Waste” woodland. In the “Great Eastern Ocean”, the voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’ is traced by a green line, with other vessels and islands also shown in the waters. In the corners of the sheet, each of the seven novels in the series is represented with a coloured circle containing a small illustration and labelled with its title.

In the upper left-hand corner a striking portrait of the lion Aslan is depicted, his mane giving him the appearance of a fiery sun. The surrounding stars and lightning-bolt only contribute to this image, reflecting Aslan’s allegorical role in the stories. This is further supported by the title cartouche in the lower right-hand corner, which is filled with a variety of characters, divided between light and darkness, setting up the battle-lines in the struggle between good and evil.