title: Full Metal Jacket

text: The line "Me so horny. Me love you long time", which is uttered by the Da Nang street prostitute to Joker, became a catchphrase in popular culture and was sampled by rap artists 2 Live Crew in their 1989 hit "Me So Horny" and by Sir Mix-A-Lot in "Baby Got Back" (1992).


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus "Panthera" native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the third largest in the world. Its distinctively marked coat features pale yellow to tan colored fur covered by spots that transition to rosettes on the sides, although a melanistic black coat appears in some individuals. The jaguar's powerful bite allows it to pierce the carapaces of turtles and tortoises, and to employ an unusual killing method: it bites directly through the skull of mammalian prey between the ears to deliver a fatal blow to the brain.


title: Jaguar

text: The modern jaguar's ancestors probably entered the Americas from Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene via the land bridge that once spanned the Bering Strait. Today, the jaguar's range extends from core Southwestern United States across Mexico and much of Central America, the Amazon rainforest and south to Paraguay and northern Argentina. It inhabits a variety of forested and open terrains, but its preferred habitat is tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forest, wetlands and wooded regions. It is adept at swimming and is largely a solitary, opportunistic, stalk-and-ambush apex predator. As a keystone species, it plays an important role in stabilizing ecosystems and in regulating prey populations.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar is threatened by habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, poaching for trade with its body parts and killings in human–wildlife conflict situations, particularly with ranchers in Central and South America. It has been listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List since 2002. The wild population is thought to have declined since the late 1990s. Priority areas for jaguar conservation comprise 51 Jaguar Conservation Units (JCUs), defined as large areas inhabited by at least 50 breeding jaguars. The JCUs are located in 36 geographic regions ranging from Mexico to Argentina.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar has featured prominently in the mythology of indigenous peoples of the Americas, including those of the Aztec and Maya civilizations.


title: Jaguar

text: The word "jaguar" is possibly derived from the Tupi-Guarani word meaning 'wild beast that overcomes its prey at a bound'. In North America, the word is pronounced disyllabic , while in British English, it is pronounced with three syllables . Indigenous peoples in Guyana call it .


title: Jaguar

text: "Onca" is derived from the Portuguese name for a spotted cat in Brazil that is larger than a lynx; cf. "ounce". The word "panther" is derived from classical Latin , itself from the ancient Greek ().


title: Jaguar

text: In 1758, Carl Linnaeus described the jaguar in his work "Systema Naturae" and gave it the scientific name "Felis onca".


title: Jaguar

text: In the 19th and 20th centuries, several jaguar type specimens formed the basis for descriptions of subspecies. In 1939, Reginald Innes Pocock recognized eight subspecies based on the geographic origins and skull morphology of these specimens.


title: Jaguar

text: Pocock did not have access to sufficient zoological specimens to critically evaluate their subspecific status but expressed doubt about the status of several. Later consideration of his work suggested only three subspecies should be recognized. The description of "P. o. palustris" was based on a fossil skull.


title: Jaguar

text: Reginald Innes Pocock placed the jaguar in the genus "Panthera" and observed that it shares several morphological features with the leopard ("P. pardus"). He, therefore, concluded that they are most closely related to each other. Results of morphological and genetic research indicate a clinal north–south variation between populations, but no evidence for subspecific differentiation. DNA analysis of 84 jaguar samples from South America revealed that the gene flow between jaguar populations in Colombia was high in the past. Since 2017, the jaguar is considered to be a monotypic taxon.


title: Jaguar

text: The "Panthera" lineage is estimated to have genetically diverged from the common ancestor of the Felidae around to ,


title: Jaguar

text: Some genetic analyses place the jaguar as a sister species to the lion with which it diverged , but other studies place the lion closer to the leopard.


title: Jaguar

text: The lineage of the jaguar appears to have originated in Africa and spread to Eurasia 1.95–1.77 mya. The modern species may have descended from "Panthera gombaszoegensis", which is thought to have entered the American continent via Beringia, the land bridge that once spanned the Bering Strait. Fossils of modern jaguars have been found in North America dating to over 850,000 years ago. Results of mitochondrial DNA analysis of 37 jaguars indicate that current populations evolved between 510,000 and 280,000 years ago in northern South America and subsequently recolonized North and Central America after the extinction of jaguars there during the Late Pleistocene.


title: Jaguar

text: Two extinct subspecies of jaguar are recognized in the fossil record: the North American "P. o. augusta" and South American "P. o. mesembrina".


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar is a compact and well-muscled animal. It is the largest cat native to the Americas and the third largest in the world, exceeded in size only by the tiger and the lion. It stands tall at the shoulders.


title: Jaguar

text: Its size and weight vary considerably: weights are normally in the range of . Exceptionally big males have been recorded to weigh as much as .


title: Jaguar

text: The smallest females weigh about . It is sexually dimorphic, with females typically being 10–20% smaller than males. The length from the nose to the base of the tail varies from . The tail is long and the shortest of any big cat.


title: Jaguar

text: Further variations in size have been observed across regions and habitats, with size tending to increase from north to south. Jaguars in the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve on the Pacific coast of central Mexico weighed around , which is about the size of a female cougar ("Puma concolor").


title: Jaguar

text: Jaguars in Venezuela and Brazil are much larger, with average weights of about in males and of about in females.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar's coat ranges from pale yellow to tan or reddish-yellow, with a whitish underside and covered in black spots. The spots and their shapes vary: on the sides, they become rosettes which may include one or several dots. The spots on the head and neck are generally solid, as are those on the tail where they may merge to form bands near the end and create a black tip. They are elongated on the middle of the back, often connecting to create a median stripe, and blotchy on the belly. These patterns serve as camouflage in areas with dense vegetation and patchy shadows.


title: Jaguar

text: Jaguars living in forests are often darker and considerably smaller than those living in open areas, possibly due to the smaller numbers of large, herbivorous prey in forest areas.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar closely resembles the leopard but is generally more robust, with stockier limbs and a more square head. The rosettes on a jaguar's coat are larger, darker, fewer in number and have thicker lines, with a small spot in the middle.


title: Jaguar

text: It has an average bite force at the canine tip of 887.0 Newton and a bite force quotient at the canine tip of 118.6.


title: Jaguar

text: Melanistic jaguars are also known as black panthers. The black morph is less common than the spotted one.


title: Jaguar

text: Black jaguars have been documented in Central and South America. Melanism in the jaguar is caused by deletions in the melanocortin 1 receptor gene and inherited through a dominant allele.


title: Jaguar

text: In 2004, a camera trap in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains photographed the first documented black jaguar in Northern Mexico. Black jaguars were also photographed in Costa Rica's Alberto Manuel Brenes Biological Reserve, in the mountains of the Cordillera de Talamanca, in Barbilla National Park and in eastern Panama.


title: Jaguar

text: In the 19th century, the jaguar was still sighted at the North Platte River in Colorado and coastal Louisiana.


title: Jaguar

text: In 1999, its historic range at the turn of the 20th century was estimated at , stretching from the southern United States through Central America to southern Argentina. By the turn of the 21st century, its global range had decreased to about , with most declines in the southern United States, northern Mexico, northern Brazil, and southern Argentina.


title: Jaguar

text: Its present range extends from Mexico through Central America to South America comprising Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, particularly on the Osa Peninsula, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. It is considered to be locally extinct in El Salvador and Uruguay.


title: Jaguar

text: Between 2012 and 2015, a male vagrant jaguar was recorded in 23 locations in the Santa Rita Mountains.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar prefers dense forest and typically inhabits dry deciduous forests, tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, rainforests and cloud forests in Central and South America; open, seasonally flooded wetlands, dry grassland and historically also oak forests in the United States. It has been recorded at elevations up to but avoids montane forests. It favors riverine habitat and swamps with dense vegetation cover. In the Mayan forests of Mexico and Guatemala, 11 GPS-collared jaguars preferred undisturbed dense habitat away from roads; females avoided even areas with low levels of human activity, whereas males appeared less disturbed by human population density. A young male jaguar was also recorded in the semi-arid Sierra de San Carlos at a waterhole.


title: Jaguar

text: However, jaguars living in densely forested regions of the Amazon Rainforest and the Pantanal are largely active by day, whereas jaguars in the Atlantic Forest are primarily active by night.


title: Jaguar

text: The activity pattern of the jaguar coincides with the activity of its main prey species. Jaguars are good swimmers and play and hunt in the water, possibly more than tigers. They have been recorded moving between islands and the shore. Jaguars are also good at climbing trees but do so less often than cougars.


title: Jaguar

text: The adult jaguar is an apex predator, meaning it is at the top of the food chain and is not preyed upon in the wild. The jaguar has also been termed a keystone species, as it is assumed that it controls the population levels of prey such as herbivorous and seed-eating mammals and thus maintains the structural integrity of forest systems.


title: Jaguar

text: However, field work has shown this may be natural variability, and the population increases may not be sustained. Thus, the keystone predator hypothesis is not accepted by all scientists.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar is sympatric with the cougar ("Puma concolor"). In central Mexico, both prey on white-tailed deer ("Odocoileus virginianus"), which makes up 54% and 66% of jaguar and cougar's prey, respectively. In northern Mexico, the jaguar and the cougar share the same habitat, and their diet overlaps dependent on prey availability. Jaguars seemed to prefer deer and calves. In Mexico and Central America, neither of the two cats are considered to be the dominant predator.


title: Jaguar

text: In South America, the jaguar is larger than the cougar and tends to take larger prey, usually over . The cougar's prey usually weighs between , which is thought to be the reason for its smaller size.


title: Jaguar

text: This situation may be advantageous to the cougar. Its broader prey niche, including its ability to take smaller prey, may give it an advantage over the jaguar in human-altered landscapes.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar is an obligate carnivore and depends solely on flesh for its nutrient requirements. An analysis of 53 studies documenting the diet of the jaguar revealed that its prey ranges in weight from ; it prefers prey weighing , with capybara ("Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris") and giant anteater ("Myrmecophaga tridactyla") being the most selected. When available, it also preys on marsh deer ("Blastocerus dichotomus"), southern tamandua ("Tamandua tetradactyla"), collared peccary ("Dicotyles tajacu") and black agouti ("Dasyprocta fuliginosa"). In floodplains, jaguars opportunistically take reptiles such as turtles and caimans. Consumption of reptiles appears to be more frequent in jaguars than in other big cats. One remote population in the Brazilian Pantanal is recorded to primarily feed on aquatic reptiles and fish.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar's bite force allows it to pierce the carapaces of the yellow-spotted Amazon river turtle ("Podocnemis unifilis") and the yellow-footed tortoise ("Chelonoidis denticulatus"). It employs an unusual killing method: it bites mammalian prey directly through the skull between the ears to deliver a fatal bite to the brain. It kills capybara by piercing its canine teeth through the temporal bones of its skull, breaking its zygomatic arch and mandible and penetrating its brain, often through the ears.


title: Jaguar

text: It has been hypothesized to be an adaptation to "cracking open" turtle shells; armored reptiles may have formed an abundant prey base for the jaguar following the late Pleistocene extinctions. However, this is disputed, as even in areas where jaguars prey on reptiles, they are still taken relatively infrequently compared to mammals in spite of their greater abundance.


title: Jaguar

text: Between October 2001 and April 2004, 10 jaguars were monitored in the southern Pantanal. In the dry season from April to September, they killed prey at intervals ranging from one to seven days; and ranging from one to 16 days in the wet season from October to March.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar uses a stalk-and-ambush strategy when hunting rather than chasing prey. The cat will slowly walk down forest paths, listening for and stalking prey before rushing or ambushing. The jaguar attacks from cover and usually from a target's blind spot with a quick pounce; the species' ambushing abilities are considered nearly peerless in the animal kingdom by both indigenous people and field researchers and are probably a product of its role as an apex predator in several different environments. The ambush may include leaping into water after prey, as a jaguar is quite capable of carrying a large kill while swimming; its strength is such that carcasses as large as a heifer can be hauled up a tree to avoid flood levels. After killing prey, the jaguar will drag the carcass to a thicket or other secluded spot. It begins eating at the neck and chest. The heart and lungs are consumed, followed by the shoulders.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar is generally solitary except for females with cubs. In 1977, groups consisting of a male, female and cubs, and two females with two males were sighted several times in a study area in the Paraguay River valley. In some areas, males may form paired coalitions which together mark, defend and invade territories, find and mate with the same females and search for and share prey. A radio-collared female moved in a home range of , which partly overlapped with another female. The home range of the male in this study area overlapped with several females.


title: Jaguar

text: The size of home ranges depends on the level of deforestation and human population density. The home ranges of females vary from in the Pantanal to in the Amazon to in the Atlantic Forest. Male jaguar home ranges vary from in the Pantanal to in the Amazon to in the Atlantic Forest and in the Cerrado.


title: Jaguar

text: Studies employing GPS telemetry in 2003 and 2004 found densities of only six to seven jaguars per 100 km in the Pantanal region, compared with 10 to 11 using traditional methods; this suggests the widely used sampling methods may inflate the actual numbers of individuals in a sampling area. Fights between males occur but are rare, and avoidance behavior has been observed in the wild. In one wetland population with degraded territorial boundaries and more social proximity, adults of the same sex are more tolerant of each other and engage in more friendly and co-operative interactions.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar roars or grunts for long-distance communication; intensive bouts of counter-calling between individuals have been observed in the wild. This vocalization is described as "hoarse" with five or six guttural notes. Chuffing is produced by individuals when greeting, during courting, or by a mother comforting her cubs. This sound is described as low intensity snorts, possibly intended to signal tranquility and passivity. Cubs have been recorded bleating, gurgling and mewing.


title: Jaguar

text: In captivity, the female jaguar is recorded to reach sexual maturity at the age of about 2.5 years. Estrus lasts 7–15 days with an estrus cycle of 41.8 to 52.6 days. During estrus, she exhibits increased restlessness with rolling and prolonged vocalizations.


title: Jaguar

text: In the Pantanal, breeding pairs were observed to stay together for up to five days. Females had one to two cubs.


title: Jaguar

text: The young are born with closed eyes but open them after two weeks. Cubs are weaned at the age of three months but remain in the birth den for six months before leaving to accompany their mother on hunts.


title: Jaguar

text: Jaguars remain with their mothers for up to two years. They appear to rarely live beyond 11 years, but captive individuals may live 22 years.


title: Jaguar

text: In 2001, a male jaguar killed and partially consumed two cubs in Emas National Park. DNA paternity testing of blood samples revealed that the male was the father of the cubs. Two more cases of infanticide were documented in the northern Pantanal in 2013. To defend against infanticide, the female may hide her cubs and distract the male with courtship behavior.


title: Jaguar

text: The Spanish conquistadors feared the jaguar. According to Charles Darwin, the indigenous peoples of South America stated that people did not need to fear the jaguar as long as capybaras were abundant.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar is the least likely of all big cats to kill and eat humans, and the majority of attacks come when it has been cornered or wounded.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar is threatened by loss and fragmentation of habitat, illegal killing in retaliation for livestock depredation and for illegal trade in jaguar body parts. It is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List since 2002, as the jaguar population has probably declined by 20–25% since the mid-1990s. Deforestation is a major threat to the jaguar across its range. Habitat loss was most rapid in drier regions such as the Argentine pampas, the arid grasslands of Mexico and the southwestern United States.


title: Jaguar

text: In 2002, it was estimated that the range of the jaguar had declined to about 46% of its range in the early 20th century. In 2018, it was estimated that its range had declined by 55% in the last century. The only remaining stronghold is the Amazon rainforest, a region that is rapidly being fragmented by deforestation.


title: Jaguar

text: Between 2000 and 2012, forest loss in the jaguar range amounted to , with fragmentation increasing in particular in corridors between Jaguar Conservation Units (JCUs).


title: Jaguar

text: By 2014, direct linkages between two JCUs in Bolivia were lost, and two JCUs in northern Argentina became completely isolated due to deforestation.


title: Jaguar

text: In Mexico, the jaguar is primarily threatened by poaching. Its habitat is fragmented in northern Mexico, in the Gulf of Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula, caused by changes in land use, construction of roads and tourism infrastructure.


title: Jaguar

text: In Panama, 220 of 230 jaguars were killed in retaliation for predation on livestock between 1998 and 2014.


title: Jaguar

text: In Venezuela, the jaguar was extirpated in about 26% of its range in the country since 1940, mostly in dry savannas and unproductive scrubland in the northeastern region of Anzoátegui.


title: Jaguar

text: In Ecuador, the jaguar is threatened by reduced prey availability in areas where the expansion of the road network facilitated access of human hunters to forests.


title: Jaguar

text: In the Alto Paraná Atlantic forests, at least 117 jaguars were killed in Iguaçu National Park and the adjacent Misiones Province between 1995 and 2008.


title: Jaguar

text: Some Afro-Colombians in the Colombian Chocó Department hunt jaguars for consumption and sale of meat.


title: Jaguar

text: The international trade of jaguar skins boomed between the end of the Second World War and the early 1970s.


title: Jaguar

text: Significant declines occurred in the 1960s, as more than 15,000 jaguars were yearly killed for their skins in the Brazilian Amazon alone; the trade in jaguar skins decreased since 1973 when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species was enacted.


title: Jaguar

text: Interview surveys with 533 people in the northwestern Bolivian Amazon revealed that local people killed jaguars out of fear, in retaliation, and for trade.


title: Jaguar

text: Between August 2016 and August 2019, jaguar skins and body parts were seen for sale in tourist markets in the Peruvian cities of Lima, Iquitos and Pucallpa.


title: Jaguar

text: Human-wildlife conflict, opportunistic hunting and hunting for trade in domestic markets are key drivers for killing jaguars in Belize and Guatemala.


title: Jaguar

text: Seizure reports indicate that at least 857 jaguars were involved in trade between 2012 and 2018, including 482 individuals in Bolivia alone; 31 jaguars were seized in China.


title: Jaguar

text: Between 2014 and early 2019, 760 jaguar fangs were seized that originated in Bolivia and were destined for China. Undercover investigations revealed that the smuggling of jaguar body parts is run by Chinese residents in Bolivia.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar is listed on CITES Appendix I, which means that all international commercial trade in jaguars or their body parts is prohibited. Hunting jaguars is prohibited in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, French Guiana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, the United States, and Venezuela. Hunting jaguars is restricted in Guatemala and Peru. In Ecuador, hunting jaguars is prohibited, and it is classified as threatened with extinction.


title: Jaguar

text: In 1986, the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary was established in Belize as the world's first protected area for jaguar conservation.


title: Jaguar

text: In 1999, field scientists from 18 jaguar range countries determined the most important areas for long-term jaguar conservation based on the status of jaguar population units, stability of prey base and quality of habitat. These areas, called "Jaguar Conservation Units" (JCUs), are large enough for at least 50 breeding individuals and range in size from ; 51 JCUs were designated in 36 geographic regions including:


title: Jaguar

text: Optimal routes of travel between core jaguar population units were identified across its range in 2010 to implement wildlife corridors that connect JCUs. These corridors represent areas with the shortest distance between jaguar breeding populations, require the least possible energy input of dispersing individuals and pose a low mortality risk. They cover an area of and range in length from in Mexico and Central America and from in South America.


title: Jaguar

text: Cooperation with local landowners and municipal, state, or federal agencies is essential to maintain connected populations and prevent fragmentation in both JCUs and corridors.


title: Jaguar

text: Seven of 13 corridors in Mexico are functioning with a width of at least and a length of no more than . The other corridors may hamper passage, as they are narrower and longer.


title: Jaguar

text: In August 2012, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service set aside in Arizona and New Mexico for the protection of the jaguar. The Jaguar Recovery Plan was published in April 2019, in which Interstate 10 is considered to form the northern boundary of the Jaguar Recovery Unit in Arizona and New Mexico.


title: Jaguar

text: In Mexico, a national conservation strategy was developed from 2005 on and published in 2016. The Mexican jaguar population increased from an estimated 4,000 individuals in 2010 to about 4,800 individuals in 2018. This increase is seen as a positive effect of conservation measures that were implemented in cooperation with governmental and non-governmental institutions and landowners.


title: Jaguar

text: An evaluation of JCUs from Mexico to Argentina revealed that they overlap with high-quality habitats of about 1,500 mammals to varying degrees. Since co-occurring mammals benefit from the JCU approach, the jaguar has been called an umbrella species.


title: Jaguar

text: Central American JCUs overlap with the habitat of 187 of 304 regional endemic amphibian and reptile species, of which 19 amphibians occur only in the jaguar range.


title: Jaguar

text: In setting up protected reserves, efforts generally also have to be focused on the surrounding areas, as jaguars are unlikely to confine themselves to the bounds of a reservation, especially if the population is increasing in size. Human attitudes in the areas surrounding reserves and laws and regulations to prevent poaching are essential to make conservation areas effective.


title: Jaguar

text: To estimate population sizes within specific areas and to keep track of individual jaguars, camera trapping and wildlife tracking telemetry are widely used, and feces are sought out with the help of detection dogs to study jaguar health and diet.


title: Jaguar

text: Current conservation efforts often focus on educating ranch owners and promoting ecotourism. Ecotourism setups are being used to generate public interest in charismatic animals such as the jaguar while at the same time generating revenue that can be used in conservation efforts. A key concern in jaguar ecotourism is the considerable habitat space the species requires. If ecotourism is used to aid in jaguar conservation, some considerations need to be made as to how existing ecosystems will be kept intact, or how new ecosystems will be put into place that are large enough to support a growing jaguar population.


title: Jaguar

text: In the pre-Columbian Americas, the jaguar was a symbol of power and strength. In the Andes, a jaguar cult disseminated by the early Chavín culture became accepted over most of today's Peru by 900 BC. The later Moche culture in northern Peru used the jaguar as a symbol of power in many of their ceramics. In the Muisca religion in Altiplano Cundiboyacense, the jaguar was considered a sacred animal, and people dressed in jaguar skins during religious rituals.


title: Jaguar

text: The name of the Muisca ruler Nemequene was derived from the Chibcha words "nymy" and "quyne", meaning "force of the jaguar".


title: Jaguar

text: Sculptures with "Olmec were-jaguar" motifs were found on the Yucatán Peninsula in Veracruz and Tabasco; they show stylized jaguars with half-human faces. In the later Maya civilization, the jaguar was believed to facilitate communication between the living and the dead and to protect the royal household. The Maya saw these powerful felines as their companions in the spiritual world, and several Maya rulers bore names that incorporated the Mayan word for jaguar "b'alam" in many of the Mayan languages. "Balam" remains a common Maya surname, and it is also the name of Chilam Balam, a legendary author to whom are attributed 17th and 18th-centuries Maya miscellanies preserving much important knowledge. Remains of jaguar bones were discovered in a burial site in Guatemala, which indicates that Mayans may have kept jaguars as pets.


title: Jaguar

text: The Aztec civilization shared this image of the jaguar as the representative of the ruler and as a warrior. The Aztecs formed an elite warrior class known as the Jaguar warrior. In Aztec mythology, the jaguar was considered to be the totem animal of the powerful deity Tezcatlipoca.


title: Jaguar

text: A conch shell gorget depicting a jaguar was found in a burial mound in Benton County, Missouri. The gorget shows evenly-engraved lines and measures .


title: Jaguar

text: Rock drawings made by the Hopi, Anasazi and Pueblo all over the desert and chaparral regions of the American Southwest show an explicitly spotted cat, presumably a jaguar, as it is drawn much larger than an ocelot.


title: Jaguar

text: The jaguar is also used as a symbol in contemporary culture. It is the national animal of Guyana and is featured in its coat of arms.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven high fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, "The Chronicles of Narnia" has been adapted for radio, television, the stage, film and video games. The series is set in the fictional realm of Narnia, a fantasy world of magic, mythical beasts and talking animals. It narrates the adventures of various children who play central roles in the unfolding history of the Narnian world. Except in "The Horse and His Boy", the protagonists are all children from the real world who are magically transported to Narnia, where they are sometimes called upon by the lion Aslan to protect Narnia from evil. The books span the entire history of Narnia, from its creation in "The Magician's Nephew" to its eventual destruction in "The Last Battle".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: "The Chronicles of Narnia" is considered a classic of children's literature and is Lewis's best-selling work, having sold over 100 million copies in 47 languages.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Although Lewis originally conceived what would become "The Chronicles of Narnia" in 1939 (the picture of a Faun with parcels in a snowy wood has a history dating to 1914), he did not finish writing the first book "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" until 1949. "The Magician's Nephew", the penultimate book to be published, but the last to be written, was completed in 1954. Lewis did not write the books in the order in which they were originally published, nor were they published in their current chronological order of presentation. The original illustrator, Pauline Baynes, created pen and ink drawings for the "Narnia" books that are still used in the editions published today. Lewis was awarded the 1956 Carnegie Medal for "The Last Battle", the final book in the saga. The series was first referred to as "The Chronicles of Narnia" by fellow children's author Roger Lancelyn Green in March 1951, after he had read and discussed with Lewis his recently completed fourth book "The Silver Chair", originally entitled "Night under Narnia".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Lewis described the origin of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" in an essay entitled "It All Began with a Picture":


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The "Lion" all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: "Let's try to make a story about it."


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Shortly before the start of World War II, many children were evacuated to the English countryside in anticipation of attacks on London and other major urban areas by Nazi Germany. As a result, on 2 September 1939, three school girls named Margaret, Mary and Katherine came to live at The Kilns in Risinghurst, Lewis's home three miles east of Oxford city centre. Lewis later suggested that the experience gave him a new appreciation of children and in late September he began a children's story on an odd sheet of paper which has survived as part of another manuscript:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: This book is about four children whose names were Ann, Martin, Rose and Peter. But it is most about Peter who was the youngest. They all had to go away from London suddenly because of Air Raids, and because Father, who was in the Army, had gone off to the War and Mother was doing some kind of war work. They were sent to stay with a kind of relation of Mother's who was a very old professor who lived all by himself in the country.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: At first, I had very little idea how the story would go. But then suddenly Aslan came bounding into it. I think I had been having a good many dreams of lions about that time. Apart from that, I don't know where the Lion came from or why he came. But once he was there, he pulled the whole story together, and soon he pulled the six other Narnian stories in after him.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Although Lewis pleaded ignorance about the source of his inspiration for Aslan, Jared Lobdell, digging into Lewis's history to explore the making of the series, suggests Charles Williams's 1931 novel "The Place of the Lion" as a likely influence.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: When Walter Hooper asked where he found the word 'Narnia', Lewis showed him "Murray's Small Classical Atlas", ed. G.B. Grundy (1904), which he acquired when he was reading the classics with Mr [William T.] Kirkpatrick at Great Bookham [1914–1917]. On plate 8 of the Atlas is a map of ancient Italy. Lewis had underscored the name of a little town called Narnia, simply because he liked the sound of it. Narnia – or 'Narni' in Italian – is in Umbria, halfway between Rome and Assisi.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: "The Chronicles of Narnia's" seven books have been in continuous publication since 1956, selling over 100 million copies in 47 languages and with editions in Braille.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The first five books were originally published in the United Kingdom by Geoffrey Bles. The first edition of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was released in London on 16 October 1950. Although three more books, "Prince Caspian", "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and "The Horse and His Boy", were already complete, they were not released immediately at that time, but instead appeared (along with "The Silver Chair") one at a time in each of the subsequent years (1951–1954). The last two books ("The Magician's Nephew" and "The Last Battle") were published in the United Kingdom originally by The Bodley Head in 1955 and 1956.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: In the United States, the publication rights were first owned by Macmillan Publishers, and later by HarperCollins. The two issued both hardcover and paperback editions of the series during their tenure as publishers, while at the same time Scholastic, Inc. produced paperback versions for sale primarily through direct mail order, book clubs, and book fairs. HarperCollins also published several one-volume collected editions containing the full text of the series. As noted below (see Reading order), the first American publisher, Macmillan, numbered the books in publication sequence, whereas HarperCollins, at the suggestion of Lewis's stepson, opted to use the series' internal chronological order when they won the rights to it in 1994. Scholastic switched the numbering of its paperback editions in 1994 to mirror that of HarperCollins.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The seven books that make up "The Chronicles of Narnia" are presented here in order of original publication date:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", completed by the end of March 1949 and published by Geoffrey Bles in the United Kingdom on 16 October 1950, tells the story of four ordinary children: Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie, who have been evacuated to the English countryside from London following the outbreak of World War II. They discover a wardrobe in Professor Digory Kirke's house that leads to the magical land of Narnia. The Pevensie children help Aslan, a talking lion, save Narnia from the evil White Witch, who has reigned over the land of Narnia for a century of perpetual winter with no Christmas. The children become kings and queens of this new-found land and establish the Golden Age of Narnia, leaving a legacy to be rediscovered in later books.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Completed after Christmas 1949 and published on 15 October 1951, "Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia" tells the story of the Pevensie children's second trip to Narnia, a year (on Earth) after their first. They are drawn back by the power of Susan's horn, blown by Prince Caspian to summon help in his hour of need. Narnia as they knew it is no more, as 1,300 years have passed, their castle is in ruins, and all Narnians have retreated so far within themselves that only Aslan's magic can wake them. Caspian has fled into the woods to escape his uncle, Miraz, who has usurped the throne. The children set out once again to save Narnia.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Written between January and February 1950 and published on 15 September 1952, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" sees Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, along with their priggish cousin, Eustace Scrubb, return to Narnia, three years after their last departure. Once there, they join Caspian's voyage on the ship "Dawn Treader" to find the seven lords who were banished when Miraz took over the throne. This perilous journey brings them face to face with many wonders and dangers as they sail toward Aslan's country at the edge of the world.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Completed at the beginning of March 1951 and published 7 September 1953, "The Silver Chair" is the first Narnia book not involving the Pevensie children, focusing instead on Eustace. Several months after "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", Aslan calls Eustace back to Narnia along with his classmate Jill Pole. They are given four signs to aid them in the search for Prince Caspian's son Rilian, who disappeared ten years earlier on a quest to avenge his mother's death. Fifty years have passed in Narnia since the events from "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"; Eustace is still a child, but Caspian, barely an adult in the previous book, is now an old man. Eustace and Jill, with the help of Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle, face danger and betrayal on their quest to find Rilian.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Begun in March and completed at the end of July 1950, "The Horse and His Boy" was published on 6 September 1954. The story takes place during the reign of the Pevensies in Narnia, an era which begins and ends in the last chapter of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". The protagonists, a young boy named Shasta and a talking horse named Bree, both begin in bondage in the country of Calormen. By "chance", they meet and plan their return to Narnia and freedom. Along the way they meet Aravis and her talking horse Hwin, who are also fleeing to Narnia.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: and published by Bodley Head in London on 2 May 1955, "The Magician's Nephew" serves as a prequel and presents Narnia's origin story: how Aslan created the world and how evil first entered it. Digory Kirke and his friend Polly Plummer stumble into different worlds by experimenting with magic rings given to them by Digory's uncle. In the dying world of Charn they awaken Queen Jadis, and another world turns out to be the beginnings of the Narnian world (where Jadis later becomes the White Witch). The story is set in 1900, when Digory was a 12-year-old boy. He is a middle-aged professor by the time he hosts the Pevensie children in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" 40 years later.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Completed in March 1953 and published 4 September 1956, "The Last Battle" chronicles the end of the world of Narnia. Jill and Eustace return to save Narnia from the ape Shift, who tricks Puzzle the donkey into impersonating the lion Aslan, thereby precipitating a showdown between the Calormenes and King Tirian. This leads to the end of Narnia as it is known throughout the series, but allows Aslan to lead the characters to the "true" Narnia.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Fans of the series often have strong opinions over the order in which the books should be read. The issue revolves around the placement of "The Magician's Nephew" and "The Horse and His Boy" in the series. Both are set significantly earlier in the story of Narnia than their publication order and fall somewhat outside the main story arc connecting the others. The reading order of the other five books is not disputed.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: When first published, the books were not numbered. The first American publisher, Macmillan, enumerated them according to their original publication order, while some early British editions specified the internal chronological order. When HarperCollins took over the series rights in 1994, they adopted the internal chronological order. To make the case for the internal chronological order, Lewis's stepson, Douglas Gresham, quoted Lewis's 1957 reply to a letter from an American fan who was having an argument with his mother about the order:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: In the 2005 HarperCollins adult editions of the books, the publisher cites this letter to assert Lewis's preference for the numbering they adopted by including this notice on the copyright page:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Paul Ford cites several scholars who have weighed in against this view, and continues, "most scholars disagree with this decision and find it the least faithful to Lewis's deepest intentions". Scholars and readers who appreciate the original order believe that Lewis was simply being gracious to his youthful correspondent and that he could have changed the books' order in his lifetime had he so desired. They maintain that much of the magic of Narnia comes from the way the world is gradually presented in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" – that the mysterious wardrobe, as a narrative device, is a much better introduction to Narnia than "The Magician's Nephew", where the word "Narnia" appears in the first paragraph as something already familiar to the reader. Moreover, they say, it is clear from the texts themselves that "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was intended to be read first. When Aslan is first mentioned in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", for example, the narrator says that "None of the children knew who Aslan was, any more than you do" — which is nonsensical if one has already read "The Magician's Nephew". Other similar textual examples are also cited.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Doris Meyer, author of "C. S. Lewis in Context" and "Bareface: A guide to C. S. Lewis", writes that rearranging the stories chronologically "lessens the impact of the individual stories" and "obscures the literary structures as a whole". Peter Schakel devotes an entire chapter to this topic in his book "Imagination and the Arts in C. S. Lewis: Journeying to Narnia and Other Worlds", and in "Reading with the Heart: The Way into Narnia" he writes:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Aslan, the Great Lion, is the titular lion of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", and his role in Narnia is developed throughout the remaining books. He is also the only character to appear in all seven books. Aslan is a talking lion, the King of Beasts, son of the Emperor-Over-the-Sea. He is a wise, compassionate, magical authority (both temporal and spiritual) who serves as mysterious and benevolent guide to the human children who visit, as well as being the guardian and saviour of Narnia. C. S. Lewis described Aslan as an alternative version of Jesus as the form in which he may have appeared in an alternative reality. In his book "Miracles", C.S. Lewis argues that the possible existence of other worlds with other sentient life-forms should not deter or detract from being Christian:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The four Pevensie siblings are the main human protagonists of "The Chronicles of Narnia". Varying combinations of some or all of them appear in five of the seven novels. They are introduced in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (although their surname is not revealed until "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"), and eventually become Kings and Queens of Narnia reigning as a tetrarchy. Although introduced in the series as children, the siblings grow up into adults while reigning in Narnia. They go back to being children once they get back to their own world, but feature as adults in "The Horse and His Boy" during their Narnian reign.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: All four appear in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and "Prince Caspian"; in the latter, however, Aslan tells Peter and Susan that they will not return, as they are getting too old. Susan, Lucy, and Edmund appear in "The Horse and His Boy"—Peter is said to be away fighting giants on the other side of Narnia. Lucy and Edmund appear in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", where Aslan tells them, too, that they are getting too old. Peter, Edmund, and Lucy appear as Kings and Queens in Aslan's Country in "The Last Battle"; Susan does not. Asked by a child in 1958 if he would please write another book entitled "Susan of Narnia" so that the entire Pevensie family would be reunited, C. S. Lewis replied: "I am so glad you like the Narnian books and it was nice of you to write and tell me. There's no use just asking me to write more. When stories come into my mind I have to write them, and when they don't I can't!…"


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Lucy is the youngest of the four Pevensie siblings. Of all the Pevensie children, Lucy is the closest to Aslan, and of all the human characters who visit Narnia, Lucy is perhaps the one who believes in Narnia the most. In "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", she initiates the story by entering Narnia through the wardrobe, and (with Susan) witnesses Aslan's execution and resurrection. She is named Queen Lucy the Valiant. In "Prince Caspian", she is the first to see Aslan when he comes to guide them. In "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", it is Lucy who breaks the spell of invisibility on the Dufflepuds. As an adult in "The Horse and His Boy", she helps fight the Calormenes at Anvard. Although a minor character in "The Last Battle", much of the closing chapter is seen from her point of view.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Edmund is the second child to enter Narnia in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", where he falls under the White Witch's spell from eating the Turkish delight she gives him. Instantiating the book's Christian theme of betrayal, repentance, and subsequent redemption via blood sacrifice, he betrays his siblings to the White Witch, but quickly realizes her true nature and her evil intentions, and is redeemed by the sacrifice of Aslan's life. He is named King Edmund the Just. In "Prince Caspian" and "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", he supports Lucy; in "The Horse and His Boy", he leads the Narnian delegation to Calormen and, later, the Narnian army breaking the siege at Anvard.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: In "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", Susan accompanies Lucy to see Aslan die and rise again. She is named Queen Susan the Gentle. In "Prince Caspian", however, she is the last of the four to believe and follow Lucy when the latter is called by Aslan to guide them. As an adult queen in "The Horse and His Boy", she is courted by Prince Rabadash of Calormen, but refuses his marriage proposal, and his angry response leads the story to its climax. In "The Last Battle", she has stopped believing in Narnia and remembers it only as a childhood game, though Lewis mentioned in a letter to a fan that he thought she may eventually believe again: "The books don't tell us what happened to Susan… But there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end—in her own way."


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Peter is the eldest of the Pevensies. In "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", he kills Maugrim, a talking wolf, to save Susan, and leads the Narnian army against the White Witch. Aslan names him High King, and he is known as Peter the Magnificent. In "Prince Caspian", he duels the usurper King Miraz to restore Caspian's throne. In "The Last Battle", it is Peter whom Aslan entrusts with the duty of closing the door on Narnia for the final time.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Eustace Clarence Scrubb is a cousin of the Pevensies, and a classmate of Jill Pole at their school Experiment House. He is portrayed at first as a brat and a bully, but comes to improve his nasty behaviour when his greed turns him into a dragon for a while. His distress at having to live as a dragon causes him to reflect upon how horrible he has been, and his subsequent improved character is rewarded when Aslan changes him back into a boy. In the later books, Eustace comes across as a much nicer person, although he is still rather grumpy and argumentative. Nonetheless, he becomes a hero along with Jill Pole when the pair succeed in freeing the lost Prince Rilian from the clutches of an evil witch. He appears in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", "The Silver Chair", and "The Last Battle".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Jill Pole is a schoolmate of Eustace Scrubb. She appears in "The Silver Chair", where she is the viewpoint character for most of the action, and returns in "The Last Battle". In "The Silver Chair", Eustace introduces her to the Narnian world, where Aslan gives her the task of memorising a series of signs that will help her and Eustace on their quest to find Caspian's lost son. In "The Last Battle", she and Eustace accompany King Tirian in his ill-fated defence of Narnia against the Calormenes.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Digory Kirke is the nephew referred to in the title of "The Magician's Nephew". He first appears as a minor character in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", known only as "The Professor", who hosts the Pevensie children when they are evacuated from London and defends Lucy's story of having found a country in the back of the wardrobe. In "The Magician's Nephew", the young Digory, thanks to his uncle's magical experimentation, inadvertently brings Jadis from her dying homeworld of Charn to the newly-created world of Narnia; to fix his mistake Aslan sends him to fetch a magical apple which will protect Narnia and heal his dying mother. He returns in "The Last Battle".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Polly Plummer appears in "The Magician's Nephew" and "The Last Battle". She is the next-door neighbour of the young Digory Kirke. She is tricked by a wicked magician (who is Digory's uncle) into touching a magic ring which transports her to the Wood between the Worlds and leaves her there stranded. The wicked uncle persuades Digory to follow her with a second magic ring that has the power to bring her back. This sets up the pair's adventures into other worlds, and they witness the creation of Narnia as described in "The Magician's Nephew". She appears at the end of "The Last Battle".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Tumnus the Faun, called "Mr Tumnus" by Lucy, is featured prominently in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and also appears in "The Horse and His Boy" and "The Last Battle". He is the first creature Lucy meets in Narnia, as well as the first Narnian to be introduced in the series; he invites her to his home with the intention of betraying her to Jadis, but quickly repents and befriends her. In "The Horse and His Boy", he devises the Narnian delegation's plan of escape from Calormen. He returns for a brief dialogue at the end of "The Last Battle". A mental image of a faun in a snowy wood was Lewis's initial inspiration for the entire series; Tumnus is that faun.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Caspian is first introduced in the book titled after him, as the young nephew and heir of King Miraz. Fleeing potential assassination by his uncle, he becomes leader of the Old Narnian rebellion against the Telmarine occupation. With the help of the Pevensies, he defeats Miraz's army and becomes King Caspian X of Narnia. In "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", he leads an expedition out into the eastern ocean to find Seven Lords whom Miraz had exiled, and ultimately to reach Aslan's Country. In "The Silver Chair", he makes two brief appearances as an old, dying man, but at the end is resurrected in Aslan's Country.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Trumpkin the Dwarf is the narrator of several chapters of "Prince Caspian"; he is one of Caspian's rescuers and a leading figure in the "Old Narnian" rebellion, and accompanies the Pevensie children from the ruins of Cair Paravel to the Old Narnian camp. In "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", we learn that Caspian has made him his Regent in Narnia while he is away at sea, and he appears briefly in this role (now elderly and very deaf) in "The Silver Chair".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Reepicheep the Mouse is the leader of the Talking Mice of Narnia in "Prince Caspian". Utterly fearless, infallibly courteous, and obsessed with honour, he is badly wounded in the final battle but healed by Lucy and Aslan. In "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", his role is greatly expanded; he becomes a visionary as well as a warrior, and ultimately his willing self-exile to Aslan's Country breaks the enchantment on the last three of the Lost Lords, thus achieving the final goal of the quest. Lewis identified Reepicheep as "specially" exemplifying the latter book's theme of "the spiritual life".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle guides Eustace and Jill on their quest in "The Silver Chair". Though always comically pessimistic, he provides the voice of reason and as such intervenes critically in the climactic enchantment scene.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Shasta, later known as Cor of Archenland, is the principal character in "The Horse and His Boy". Born the eldest son and heir of King Lune of Archenland, and elder twin of Prince Corin, Cor was kidnapped as an infant and raised as a fisherman's son in Calormen. With the help of the talking horse Bree, Shasta escapes from being sold into slavery and makes his way northward to Narnia. On the journey his companion Aravis learns of an imminent Calormene surprise attack on Archenland; Shasta warns the Archenlanders in time and discovers his true identity and original name. At the end of the story he marries Aravis and becomes King of Archenland.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Aravis, daughter of Kidrash Tarkaan, is a character in "The Horse and His Boy". Escaping a forced betrothal to the loathsome Ahoshta, she joins Shasta on his journey and inadvertently overhears a plot by Rabadash, crown prince of Calormen, to invade Archenland. She later marries Shasta, now known as Prince Cor, and becomes queen of Archenland at his side.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Bree (Breehy-hinny-brinny-hoohy-hah) is Shasta's mount and mentor in "The Horse and His Boy". A Talking Horse of Narnia, he wandered into Calormen as a foal and was captured. He first appears as a Calormene nobleman's war-horse; when the nobleman buys Shasta as a slave, Bree organises and carries out their joint escape. Though friendly, he is also vain and a braggart until his encounter with Aslan late in the story.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The last King of Narnia is the viewpoint character for much of "The Last Battle". Having rashly killed a Calormene for mistreating a Narnian Talking Horse, he is imprisoned by the villainous ape Shift but released by Eustace and Jill. Together they fight faithfully to the last and are welcomed into Aslan's Kingdom.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Jadis, commonly known during her rule of Narnia as the White Witch, is the main villain of "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" and "The Magician's Nephew"—the only antagonist to appear in more than one Narnia book. In "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", she is the witch responsible for the freezing of Narnia resulting in the Hundred Year Winter; she turns her enemies into statues and kills Aslan on the Stone Table, but is killed by him in battle after his resurrection. In "The Magician's Nephew", she is wakened from a magical sleep by Digory in the dead world of Charn and inadvertently brought to Victorian London before being transported to Narnia, where she steals an apple to grant her the gift of immortality.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: King Miraz is the lead villain of "Prince Caspian". Prior to the book's opening he has killed King Caspian IX, father of the titular Prince Caspian, and usurped his throne as king of the Telmarine colonizers in Narnia. He raises Caspian as his heir, but seeks to kill him after his own son is born. As the story progresses he leads the Telmarine war against the Old Narnian rebellion; he is defeated in single combat by Peter and then murdered by one of his own lords.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The Lady of the Green Kirtle is the lead villain of "The Silver Chair", and is also referred to in that book as "the Queen of Underland" or simply as "the Witch". She rules an underground kingdom through magical mind-control. Prior to the events of "The Silver Chair", she has murdered Caspian's Queen and then seduced and abducted his son Prince Rilian. She encounters the protagonists on their quest and sends them astray. Confronted by them later, she attempts to enslave them magically; when that fails, she attacks them in the form of a serpent and is killed.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Prince Rabadash, heir to the throne of Calormen, is the primary antagonist of "The Horse and His Boy". Hot-headed, arrogant, and entitled, he brings Queen Susan of Narnia—along with a small retinue of Narnians, including King Edmund—to Calormen in the hope that Susan will marry him. When the Narnians realize that Rabadash may force Susan to accept his marriage proposal, they spirit Susan out of Calormen by ship. Incensed, Rabadash launches a surprise attack on Archenland with the ultimate intention of raiding Narnia and taking Susan captive. His plan is foiled when Shasta and Aravis warn the Archenlanders of his impending strike. After being captured by Edmund, Rabadash blasphemes against Aslan. Aslan then temporarily transforms him into a donkey as punishment.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Shift is the most prominent villain of "The Last Battle". He is an elderly Talking Ape—Lewis does not specify what kind of ape, but Pauline Baynes' illustrations depict him as a chimpanzee. He persuades the naïve donkey Puzzle to pretend to be Aslan (wearing a lion-skin) in order to seize control of Narnia, and proceeds to cut down the forests, enslave the other Talking Beasts, and invite the Calormenes to invade. He loses control of the situation due to over-indulging in alcohol, and is eventually swallowed up by the evil Calormene god Tash.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: "The Chronicles of Narnia" describes the world in which Narnia exists as one major landmass encircled by an ocean. Narnia's capital sits on the eastern edge of the landmass on the shores of the Great Eastern Ocean. This ocean contains the islands explored in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader". On the main landmass Lewis places the countries of Narnia, Archenland, Calormen, and Telmar, along with a variety of other areas that are not described as countries. The author also provides glimpses of more fantastic locations that exist in and around the main world of Narnia, including an edge and an underworld.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Lewis's early life has parallels with "The Chronicles of Narnia". At the age of seven, he moved with his family to a large house on the edge of Belfast. Its long hallways and empty rooms inspired Lewis and his brother to invent make-believe worlds whilst exploring their home, an activity reflected in Lucy's discovery of Narnia in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". Like Caspian and Rilian, Lewis lost his mother at an early age, spending much of his youth in English boarding schools similar to those attended by the Pevensie children, Eustace Scrubb, and Jill Pole. During World War II many children were evacuated from London and other urban areas because of German air raids. Some of these children, including one named Lucy (Lewis's goddaughter) stayed with him at his home The Kilns near Oxford, just as the Pevensies stayed with The Professor in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Drew Trotter, president of the Center for Christian Study, noted that the producers of the film "" felt that the books' plots adhere to the archetypal "monomyth" pattern as detailed in Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Lewis was widely read in medieval Celtic literature, an influence reflected throughout the books, and most strongly in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." The entire book imitates one of the immrama, a type of traditional Old Irish tale that combines elements of Christianity and Irish mythology to tell the story of a hero's sea journey to the Otherworld.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Michael Ward's 2008 book "Planet Narnia" proposes that each of the seven books related to one of the seven moving heavenly bodies or "planets" known in the Middle Ages according to the Ptolemaic geocentric model of cosmology (a theme to which Lewis returned habitually throughout his work). At that time, each of these heavenly bodies was believed to have certain attributes, and Ward contends that these attributes were deliberately but subtly used by Lewis to furnish elements of the stories of each book:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Lewis's interest in the literary symbolism of medieval and Renaissance astrology is more overtly referenced in other works such as his study of medieval cosmology "The Discarded Image", and in his early poetry as well as in "Space Trilogy". Narnia scholar Paul F. Ford finds Ward's assertion that Lewis intended "The Chronicles" to be an embodiment of medieval astrology implausible, though Ford addresses an earlier (2003) version of Ward's thesis (also called "Planet Narnia", published in the "Times Literary Supplement"). Ford argues that Lewis did not start with a coherent plan for the books, but Ward's book answers this by arguing that the astrological associations grew in the writing:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: A quantitative analysis on the imagery in the different books of "The Chronicles" gives mixed support to Ward's thesis: "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", "The Silver Chair", "The Horse and His Boy", and "The Magician's Nephew" do indeed employ concepts associated with, respectively, Sol, Luna, Mercury, and Venus, far more often than chance would predict, but "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", "Prince Caspian", and "The Last Battle" fall short of statistical correlation with their proposed planets.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: George MacDonald's "Phantastes" (1858) influenced the structure and setting of "The Chronicles". It was a work that was " a great balm to the soul".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Plato was an undeniable influence on Lewis's writing of "The Chronicles". Most clearly, Digory explicitly invokes Plato's name at the end of "The Last Battle", to explain how the old version of Narnia is but a shadow of the newly revealed "true" Narnia. Plato's influence is also apparent in "The Silver Chair" when the Queen of the Underland attempts to convince the protagonists that the surface world is not real. She echoes the logic of Plato's Cave by comparing the sun to a nearby lamp, arguing that reality is only that which is perceived in the immediate physical vicinity.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The White Witch in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" shares many features, both of appearance and character, with the villainous Duessa of Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene", a work Lewis studied in detail. Like Duessa, she falsely styles herself Queen; she leads astray the erring Edmund with false temptations; she turns people into stone as Duessa turns them into trees. Both villains wear opulent robes and deck their conveyances out with bells. In "The Magician's Nephew" Jadis takes on echoes of Satan from John Milton's "Paradise Lost": she climbs over the wall of the paradisal garden in contempt of the command to enter only by the gate, and proceeds to tempt Digory as Satan tempted Eve, with lies and half-truths. Similarly, the Lady of the Green Kirtle in "The Silver Chair" recalls both the snake-woman Errour in "The Faerie Queene" and Satan's transformation into a snake in "Paradise Lost".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Lewis read Edith Nesbit's children's books as a child and was greatly fond of them. He described "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" around the time of its completion as "a children's book in the tradition of E. Nesbit". "The Magician's Nephew" in particular bears strong resemblances to Nesbit's "The Story of the Amulet" (1906). This novel focuses on four children living in London who discover a magic amulet. Their father is away and their mother is ill, as is the case with Digory. They manage to transport the queen of ancient Babylon to London and she is the cause of a riot; likewise, Polly and Digory transport Queen Jadis to London, sparking a very similar incident.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Marsha Daigle-Williamson argues that Dante's "Divine Comedy" had a significant impact on Lewis's writings. In the Narnia series, she identifies this influence as most apparent in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and "The Silver Chair". Daigle-Williamson identifies the plot of "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" as a Dantean journey with a parallel structure and similar themes. She likewise draws numerous connections between "The Silver Chair" and the events of Dante's "Inferno".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Colin Duriez, writing on the shared elements found in both Lewis's and J. R. R. Tolkien's works, highlights the thematic similarities between Tolkien's poem "Imram" and Lewis's "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: "The Chronicles of Narnia" has been a significant influence on both adult and children's fantasy literature in the post-World War II era. In 1976, the scholar Susan Cornell Poskanzer praised Lewis for his "strangely powerful fantasies". Poskanzer argued that children could relate to "Narnia" books because the heroes and heroines were realistic characters, each with their own distinctive voice and personality. Furthermore, the protagonists become powerful kings and queens who decide the fate of kingdoms, while the adults in the "Narnia" books tended to be buffoons, which by inverting the normal order of things was pleasing to many youngsters. However, Poskanzer criticized Lewis for what she regarded as scenes of gratuitous violence, which she felt were upsetting to children. Poskanzer also noted Lewis presented his Christian message subtly enough as to avoid boring children with overt sermonizing.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Philip Pullman's fantasy series, "His Dark Materials", is seen as a response to "The Chronicles". Pullman is a self-described atheist who wholly rejects the spiritual themes that permeate "The Chronicles", yet his series nonetheless addresses many of the same issues and introduces some similar character types, including talking animals. In another parallel, the first books in each series – Pullman's "Northern Lights" and "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" – both open with a young girl hiding in a wardrobe.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Bill Willingham's comic book series "Fables" makes reference at least twice to a king called "The Great Lion", a thinly veiled reference to Aslan. The series avoids explicitly referring to any characters or works that are not in the public domain.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The novel "Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Paterson has Leslie, one of the main characters, reveal to Jesse her love of Lewis's books, subsequently lending him "The Chronicles of Narnia" so that he can learn how to behave like a king. Her book also features the island name "Terabithia", which sounds similar to Terebinthia, a Narnian island that appears in "Prince Caspian" and "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader". Katherine Paterson herself acknowledges that Terabithia is likely to be derived from Terebinthia:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: I thought I had made it up. Then, rereading "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" by C. S. Lewis, I realized that I had probably gotten it from the island of Terebinthia in that book. However, Lewis probably got that name from the terebinth tree in the Bible, so both of us pinched from somewhere else, probably unconsciously."


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Science-fiction author Greg Egan's short story "Oracle" depicts a parallel universe in which an author nicknamed Jack (Lewis's nickname) has written novels about the fictional "Kingdom of Nesica", and whose wife is dying of cancer, paralleling the death of Lewis's wife Joy Davidman. Several Narnian allegories are also used to explore issues of religion and faith versus science and knowledge.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Lev Grossman's "New York Times" best-seller "The Magicians" is a contemporary dark fantasy about an unusually gifted young man obsessed with Fillory, the magical land of his favourite childhood books. Fillory is a thinly veiled substitute for Narnia, and clearly the author expects it to be experienced as such. Not only is the land home to many similar talking animals and mythical creatures, it is also accessed through a grandfather clock in the home of an uncle to whom five English children are sent during World War II. Moreover, the land is ruled by two Aslan-like rams named Ember and Umber, and terrorised by The Watcherwoman. She, like the White Witch, freezes the land in time. The book's plot revolves heavily around a place very like the "wood between the worlds" from "The Magician's Nephew", an interworld waystation in which pools of water lead to other lands. This reference to "The Magician's Nephew" is echoed in the title of the book.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has said that she was a fan of the works of Lewis as a child, and cites the influence of "The Chronicles" on her work: "I found myself thinking about the wardrobe route to Narnia when Harry is told he has to hurl himself at a barrier in King's Cross Station – it dissolves and he's on platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and there's the train for Hogwarts." Nevertheless, she is at pains to stress the differences between Narnia and her world: "Narnia is literally a different world", she says, "whereas in the Harry books you go into a world within a world that you can see if you happen to belong. A lot of the humour comes from collisions between the magic and the everyday worlds. Generally there isn't much humour in the Narnia books, although I adored them when I was a child. I got so caught up I didn't think CS Lewis was especially preachy. Reading them now I find that his subliminal message isn't very subliminal." "New York Times" writer Charles McGrath notes the similarity between Dudley Dursley, the obnoxious son of Harry's neglectful guardians, and Eustace Scrubb, the spoiled brat who torments the main characters until he is redeemed by Aslan.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The comic book series "Pakkins' Land" by Gary and Rhoda Shipman in which a young child finds himself in a magical world filled with talking animals, including a lion character named King Aryah, has been compared favorably to the "Narnia" series. The Shipmans have cited the influence of C.S. Lewis and the "Narnia" series in response to reader letters.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: As with any popular long-lived work, contemporary culture abounds with references to the lion Aslan, travelling via wardrobe and direct mentions of "The Chronicles". Examples include:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Charlotte Staples Lewis, a character first seen early in the fourth season of the TV series "Lost", is named in reference to C. S. Lewis. "Lost" producer Damon Lindelof said that this was a clue to the direction the show would take during the season. The book "Ultimate Lost and Philosophy", edited by William Irwin and Sharon Kaye, contains a comprehensive essay on "Lost" plot motifs based on "The Chronicles".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The second SNL Digital Short by Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell features a humorous nerdcore hip hop song titled "Chronicles of Narnia (Lazy Sunday)", which focuses on the performers' plan to see "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" at a cinema. It was described by "Slate" magazine as one of the most culturally significant "Saturday Night Live" skits in many years, and an important commentary on the state of rap. Swedish Christian power metal band Narnia, whose songs are mainly about the "Chronicles of Narnia" or the Bible, feature Aslan on all their album covers. The song "Further Up, Further In" from the album "Room to Roam" by Scottish-Irish folk-rock band The Waterboys is heavily influenced by "The Chronicles of Narnia". The title is taken from a passage in "The Last Battle", and one verse of the song describes sailing to the end of the world to meet a king, similar to the ending of "Voyage of the Dawn Treader". C. S. Lewis is explicitly acknowledged as an influence in the liner notes of the 1990 compact disc.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: During interviews, the primary creator of the Japanese anime and gaming series "Digimon" has said that he was inspired and influenced by "The Chronicles of Narnia".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Lewis had authored a number of works on Christian apologetics and other literature with Christian-based themes before writing the "Narnia" books. The character Aslan is widely accepted by literary academia as being based on Jesus Christ. Lewis did not initially plan to incorporate Christian theological concepts into his "Narnia" stories. Lewis maintained that the "Narnia" books were not allegorical, preferring to term their Christian aspects a "supposition".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: "The Chronicles" have, consequently, a large Christian following, and are widely used to promote Christian ideas. However, some Christians object that "The Chronicles" promote "soft-sell paganism and occultism" due to recurring pagan imagery and themes.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Gertrude Ward noted that "When Lewis wrote "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", he clearly meant to create a world where there were no human beings at all. As the titles of Mr. Tumnus' books testify, in this world human beings are creatures of myth, while its common daily reality includes fauns and other creatures which are myth in our world. This worked well for the first volume of the series, but for later volumes Lewis thought up plots which required having more human beings in this world. In "Prince Caspian" he still kept the original structure and explained that more humans had arrived from our world at a later time, overrunning Narnia. However, later on he gave in and changed the entire concept of this world – there have always been very many humans in this world, and Narnia is just one very special country with a lot of talking animals and fauns and dwarves etc. In this revised world, with a great human empire to the south of Narnia and human principality just next door, the White Witch would not have suspected Edmund of being a dwarf who shaved his beard – there would be far more simple and obvious explanations for his origin. And in fact, in this revised world it is not entirely clear why were the four Pevensie children singled out for the Thrones of Narnia, over so many other humans in the world.(...) Still, we just have to live with these discrepencies, and enjoy each Narnia book on its own merits."


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: In later years, both Lewis and the "Chronicles" have been criticised (often by other authors of fantasy fiction) for gender role stereotyping, though other authors have defended Lewis in this area. Most allegations of sexism centre on the description of Susan Pevensie in "The Last Battle" when Lewis writes that Susan is "no longer a friend of Narnia" and interested "in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Philip Pullman, inimical to Lewis on many fronts, calls the "Narnia" stories "monumentally disparaging of women". His interpretation of the Susan passages reflects this view:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Susan, like Cinderella, is undergoing a transition from one phase of her life to another. Lewis didn't approve of that. He didn't like women in general, or sexuality at all, at least at the stage in his life when he wrote the Narnia books. He was frightened and appalled at the notion of wanting to grow up.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: In fantasy author Neil Gaiman's short story "The Problem of Susan" (2004), an elderly woman, Professor Hastings, deals with the grief and trauma of her entire family's death in a train crash. Although the woman's maiden name is not revealed, details throughout the story strongly imply that this character is the elderly Susan Pevensie. The story is written for an adult audience and deals with issues of sexuality and violence and through it Gaiman presents a critique of Lewis's treatment of Susan, as well as the problem of evil as it relates to punishment and salvation.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Lewis supporters cite the positive roles of women in the series, including Jill Pole in "The Silver Chair", Aravis Tarkheena in "The Horse and His Boy", Polly Plummer in "The Magician's Nephew," and particularly Lucy Pevensie in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". Alan Jacobs, an English professor at Wheaton College, asserts that Lucy is the most admirable of the human characters and that generally the girls come off better than the boys throughout the series (Jacobs, 2008: 259). In her contribution to "The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy", Karin Fry, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, notes that "the most sympathetic female characters in "The Chronicles" are consistently the ones who question the traditional roles of women and prove their worth to Aslan through actively engaging in the adventures just like the boys." Fry goes on to say:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The characters have positive and negative things to say about both male and female characters, suggesting an equality between sexes. However, the problem is that many of the positive qualities of the female characters seem to be those by which they can rise above their femininity ... The superficial nature of stereotypical female interests is condemned.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Nathan Ross notes that "Much of the plot of 'Wardrobe' is told exclusively from the point of view of Susan and Lucy. It is the girls who witness Aslan being killed and coming back to life – a unique experience from which the boys are excluded. Throughout, going through many highly frightening and shocking moments, Susan and Lucy behave with grown up courage and responsibility. Their experiences are told in full, over several chapters, while what the boys do at the same time – preparing an army and going into battle – is relegated to the background. This arrangement of material clearly implies that what girls saw and did was the more important. Given the commonly held interpretation – that Aslan is Jesus Christ and that what the girls saw was a no less than a reenacting of the Crucifixion – this order of priorities makes perfect sense".


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Taking a different stance altogether, Monika B. Hilder provides a thorough examination of the feminine ethos apparent in each book of the series, and proposes that critics tend to misread Lewis's representation of gender. As she puts it "...we assume that Lewis is sexist when he is in fact applauding the 'feminine' heroic. To the extent that we have not examined our own chauvinism, we demean the 'feminine' qualities and extol the 'masculine' – not noticing that Lewis does the opposite."


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: In addition to sexism, Pullman and others have also accused the Narnia series of fostering racism. Over the alleged racism in "The Horse and His Boy", newspaper editor Kyrie O'Connor wrote:


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: While the book's storytelling virtues are enormous, you don't have to be a bluestocking of political correctness to find some of this fantasy anti-Arab, or anti-Eastern, or anti-Ottoman. With all its stereotypes, mostly played for belly laughs, there are moments you'd like to stuff this story back into its closet.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Gregg Easterbrook, writing in "The Atlantic", stated that "the Calormenes, are unmistakable Muslim stand-ins", while novelist Philip Hensher raises specific concerns that a reader might gain the impression that Islam is a "Satanic cult". In rebuttal to this charge, at an address to a C. S. Lewis conference, Dr. Devin Brown argued that there are too many dissimilarities between the Calormene religion and Islam, particularly in the areas of polytheism and human sacrifice, for Lewis's writing to be regarded as critical of Islam.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Nicholas Wanberg has argued, echoing claims by Mervyn Nicholson, that accusations of racism in the books are "an oversimplification", but he asserts that the stories employ beliefs about human aesthetics, including equating dark skin with ugliness, that have been traditionally associated with racist thought.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Critics also argue whether Lewis's work presents a positive or negative view of colonialism. Nicole DuPlessis favors the anticolonial view, claiming "the negative effects of colonial exploitations and the themes of animals' rights and responsibility to the environment are emphasized in Lewis' construction of a community of living things. Through the negative examples of illegitimate rulers, Lewis constructs the 'correct' relationship between humans and nature, providing examples of rulers like Caspian who fulfil their responsibilities to the environment." Clare Etcherling counters with her claim that "those 'illegitimate' rulers are often very dark-skinned" and that the only "legitimate rulers are those sons and daughters of Adam and Eve who adhere to Christian conceptions of morality and stewardship – either white English children (such as Peter) or Narnians who possess characteristics valued and cultivated by the British (such as Caspian)."


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was first adapted in 1967. Comprising ten episodes of thirty minutes each, the screenplay was written by Trevor Preston, and directed by Helen Standage.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was adapted again in 1979, this time as an animated cartoon co-produced by Bill Melendez and the Children's Television Workshop, with a screenplay by David D. Connell.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Between 1988 and 1990, the first four books (as published) were adapted by the BBC as three TV serials. They were also aired in America on the PBS/Disney show WonderWorks. They were nominated for a total of 16 awards, including an Emmy for "Outstanding Children's Program" and a number of BAFTA awards including Best Children's Programme (Entertainment/Drama) in 1988, 1989 and 1990.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: On 3 October 2018, the C.S. Lewis Company announced that Netflix had acquired the rights to new film and television series adaptations of the "Narnia" books. According to "Fortune", this was the first time that rights to the entire "Narnia" catalogue had been held by a single company. Entertainment One, which had acquired production rights to a fourth "Narnia" film, also joined the series. Mark Gordon, Douglas Gresham and Vincent Sieber were announced as executive producers. there have been no further updates on the status of the project.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The BBC produced dramatisations of all seven novels starting in the late 1980s and running into the 90s starring Maurice Denham as Professor Kirke. They were Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 In the UK. BBC Audiobooks released both audio cassette and compact disc versions of the series.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Between 1998 and 2002, Focus on the Family produced radio dramatisations by Paul McCusker of the entire series through its Radio Theatre programme. Over one hundred performers took part including Paul Scofield as the storyteller and David Suchet as Aslan. Accompanied by an original orchestral score and cinema-quality digital sound design, the series was hosted by Lewis's stepson Douglas Gresham and ran for just over 22 hours. Recordings of the entire adaptation were released on compact disc between 1999 and 2003.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: In 1984, Vanessa Ford Productions presented "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" at London's Westminster Theatre. Adapted by Glyn Robbins, the play was directed by Richard Williams and designed by Marty Flood. The production was later revived at Westminster and The Royalty Theatre and went on tour until 1997. Productions of other tales from "The Chronicles" were also staged, including "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (1986), "The Magician's Nephew" (1988) and "The Horse and His Boy" (1990).


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: In 1997, Trumpets Inc., a Filipino Christian theatre and musical production company, produced a musical rendition of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" that Douglas Gresham, Lewis's stepson (and co-producer of the Walden Media film adaptations), has openly declared that he feels is the closest to Lewis's intent. The book and lyrics were written by Jaime del Mundo and Luna Inocian, while the music was composed by Lito Villareal.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The Royal Shakespeare Company premiered "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1998. The novel was adapted as a musical production by Adrian Mitchell, with music by Shaun Davey. The show was originally directed by Adrian Noble and designed by Anthony Ward, with the revival directed by Lucy Pitman-Wallace. Well received by audiences, the production was periodically re-staged by the RSC for several years afterwards.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: Sceptical that any cinematic adaptation could render the more fantastical elements and characters of the story realistically, Lewis never sold the film rights to the "Narnia" series. In answering a letter with a question posed by a child in 1957, asking if the Narnia series could please be on television, C. S. Lewis wrote back: "They'd be no good on TV. Humanised beasts can't be presented to the "eye" without at once becoming either hideous or ridiculous. I wish the idiots who run the film world [would] realize that there are stories which are for the "ear" alone."


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The first novel adapted was "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". Released in December 2005, "" was produced by Walden Media, distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, and directed by Andrew Adamson, with a screenplay by Ann Peacock, Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: The second novel adapted was "". Released in 2008, it was co-produced by Walden Media and Walt Disney Pictures, co-written and directed by Andrew Adamson, with Screenwriters including Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: In December 2008, Disney pulled out of financing the remainder of the "Chronicles of Narnia" film series. However, Walden Media and 20th Century Fox eventually co-produced "", which was released in December 2010.


title: The Chronicles of Narnia

text: In May 2012, producer Douglas Gresham confirmed that Walden Media's contract with the C.S. Lewis Estate had expired, and that there was a moratorium on producing any "Narnia" films outside of Walden Media. On 1 October 2013, it was announced that the C.S. Lewis Company had entered into an agreement with the Mark Gordon Company to jointly develop and produce "". On 26 April 2017, Joe Johnston was hired to direct the film. In October, Johnston said filming is expected to begin in late 2018. In November 2018, these plans were halted because Netflix had begun developing adaptations of the entire series.


title: Execution of the Romanov family

text: The Russian Imperial Romanov family (Nicholas II of Russia, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) were shot and bayoneted to death by Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16–17 July 1918. Also murdered that night were members of the imperial entourage who had accompanied them: court physician Eugene Botkin; lady-in-waiting Anna Demidova; footman Alexei Trupp; and head cook Ivan Kharitonov. The bodies were taken to the Koptyaki forest, where they were stripped, buried, and mutilated with grenades to prevent identification.


title: Execution of the Romanov family

text: Following the February Revolution in 1917, the Romanovs and their servants had been imprisoned in the Alexander Palace before being moved to Tobolsk, Siberia, in the aftermath of the October Revolution. They were next moved to a house in Yekaterinburg, near the Ural Mountains before their execution in July 1918. The Bolsheviks initially announced only Nicholas's death; for the next eight years, the Soviet leadership maintained a systematic web of misinformation relating to the fate of the family, from claiming in September 1919 that they were murdered by left-wing revolutionaries, to denying outright in April 1922 that they were dead. The Soviets finally acknowledged the murders in 1926 following the publication in France of a 1919 investigation by a White émigré but said that the bodies were destroyed and that Lenin's Cabinet was not responsible. The Soviet cover-up of the murders fuelled rumors of survivors. Various Romanov impostors claimed to be members of the Romanov family, which drew media attention away from activities of Soviet Russia.


title: Execution of the Romanov family

text: In 1979, amateur sleuth Alexander Avdonin discovered the burial site. The Soviet Union did not acknowledge the existence of these remains publicly until 1989 during the "glasnost" period. The identity of the remains was later confirmed by forensic and DNA analysis and investigation, with the assistance of British experts. In 1998, eighty years after the executions, the remains of the Romanovs were reinterred in a state funeral in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg. The funeral was not attended by key members of the Russian Orthodox Church, who disputed the authenticity of the remains. In 2007, a second, smaller grave which contained the remains of the two Romanov children missing from the larger grave, was discovered by amateur archaeologists; they were confirmed to be the remains of Alexei and a sister by DNA analysis. In 2008, after considerable and protracted legal wrangling, the Russian Prosecutor General's office rehabilitated the Romanov family as "victims of political repressions". A criminal case was opened by the Russian government in 1993, but nobody was prosecuted on the basis that the perpetrators were dead.


title: Execution of the Romanov family

text: According to the official state version of the Soviet Union, ex-Tsar Nicholas Romanov, along with members of his family and retinue, were executed by firing squad by order of the Ural Regional Soviet. Most historians attribute the execution order to the government in Moscow, specifically Vladimir Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov, who wanted to prevent the rescue of the Imperial family by the approaching Czechoslovak Legion during the ongoing Russian Civil War. This is supported by a passage in Leon Trotsky's diary. A 2011 investigation concluded that, despite the opening of state archives in the post-Soviet years, no written document has been found which proves Lenin or Sverdlov ordered the executions; however, they endorsed the murders after they occurred. Other sources argue that Lenin and the central Soviet government had wanted to conduct a trial of the Romanovs, with Trotsky serving as prosecutor, but that the local Ural Soviet, under pressure from Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and anarchists, undertook the executions on their own initiative due to the approach of the Czechoslovaks.


title: Execution of the Romanov family

text: On 22 March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II, deposed as a monarch and addressed by the sentries as "Nicholas Romanov", was reunited with his family at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. He was placed under house arrest with his family by the Provisional Government, and the family was surrounded by guards and confined to their quarters.


title: Execution of the Romanov family

text: In August 1917, after a failed attempt to send the Romanovs to the United Kingdom, where the ruling monarch was Nicholas and his wife Alexandra's mutual first cousin, King George V, Alexander Kerensky's provisional government evacuated the Romanovs to Tobolsk, Siberia, allegedly to protect them from the rising tide of revolution. There they lived in the former governor's mansion in considerable comfort. After the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917, the conditions of their imprisonment grew stricter. Talk in the government of putting Nicholas on trial grew more frequent. Nicholas was forbidden to wear epaulettes, and the sentries scrawled lewd drawings on the fence to offend his daughters. On 1 March 1918, the family was placed on soldiers' rations. Their ten servants were dismissed, and they had to give up butter and coffee.


title: Execution of the Romanov family

text: As the Bolsheviks gathered strength, the government moved Nicholas, Alexandra, and their daughter Maria to Yekaterinburg under the direction of Vasily Yakovlev in April 1918. Alexei, who had severe haemophilia, was too ill to accompany his parents and remained with his sisters Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia, not leaving Tobolsk until May. The family was imprisoned with a few remaining retainers in Yekaterinburg's Ipatiev House, which was designated The House of Special Purpose ().


title: Execution of the Romanov family

text: The Romanovs were kept in strict isolation at the Ipatiev House. They were forbidden to speak any language other than Russian and were not permitted access to their luggage, which was stored in an warehouse in the interior courtyard. Their Brownie cameras and photographic equipment were confiscated. The servants were ordered to address the Romanovs only by their names and patronymics. The imperial family was subjected to regular searches of their belongings, confiscation of their money for "safekeeping by the Ural Regional Soviet's treasurer", and attempts to remove Alexandra's and her daughters' gold bracelets from their wrists. The house was surrounded by a double palisade that obscured the view of the streets from the house. The initial fence enclosed the garden along Voznesensky Lane. On 5 June a second palisade was erected, higher and longer than the first, which completely enclosed the property. The second palisade was constructed after it was learned that passersby could see Nicholas's legs when he used the double swing in the garden.


title: Execution of the Romanov family

text: The windows in all the family's rooms were sealed shut and covered with newspapers (later painted with whitewash on 15 May). Their only source of ventilation was a fortochka in the grand duchesses' bedroom, but peeking out of it was strictly forbidden; in May a sentry fired a shot at Anastasia when she looked out. After the Romanovs made repeated requests, one of the two windows in the tsar and tsarina's corner bedroom was unsealed on 23 June 1918. The guards were ordered to increase their surveillance accordingly, and the prisoners were warned not to look out of the window or attempt to signal to anyone outside, on pain of being shot. From this window, they could see only the spire of the Voznesensky Cathedral located across the road from the house. An iron grille was installed on 11 July, after Alexandra had ignored repeated warnings from the commandant, Yakov Yurovsky, not to stand too close to the open window.