By Ajnos Gamgee
A letter written to C.S. Lewis’ friend and fellow-Inkling, Owen Barfield, was recently discovered in the Oxford Bodleian library archives. In the letter, Lewis discusses the condition of his brother Warren (Warnie) who suffered from alcoholism and whom, as a result, Lewis spent many years caring for. More significant perhaps for fans of The Chronicles of Narnia, however, is that the letter also apparently contains “a proposed change to the ending of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” This letter is dated 5 February 1949, a year before the book was published.
We do not yet know the nature of this “proposed change” and how radical or interesting it was, but the letter is due to be published in the next issue of The Journal of Inklings Studies which is coming out next week. We will update you if and when we know more regarding the details.
For more information, visit The Journal of Inklings Studies website.
The Journal of Inklings Studies is an academic journal which publishes articles by various scholars on the Oxford literary circle to which C.S. Lewis belonged. It is not affiliated with or specifically endorsed by TLC.
I am very interested to hear about the change…How big of a change it is, if it’s just a passing thought, or if it was something he had really intended to do.
Oooooohhh…insider information!! I’d love to find out what the change was…
Hello! I’m an administrator of Russian site dedicated to Narnia, and our community take a great interest about the letter. And especially, about “a proposed change” in the LWW book.
The article was posted more than month ago. Maybe there’s any new information about the letter of C.S. Lewis?