[The Chronicles of Narnia:] by LEWIS, C. S - 1950-1956: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Magician's Nephew; The Last Battle.

London: Geoffrey Bles, [The Bodley Head], 1950-1956. A handsome leather-bound set of the Narnia novels 7 works, octavo. Attractively bound in recent burgundy morocco, raised bands to spines, titles and decoration to spines gilt, single rule to boards gilt, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Housed in a matching cloth slipcase. With colour frontispieces and black and white illustrations by Pauline Baynes. The occasional minor blemish, an excellent set. First editions, first impressions, of this complete set of the Narnia series. "The immediate inspiration for 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' was a series of nightmares that Lewis had had about Lions. More seriously, he was concerned to do for children what he had done for an adult readership in his science fiction trilogy... The Narnia novels are not allegorical; they are entirely in keeping with the belief, shared by Lewis and his close friend and Oxford colleague Tolkien, that stories in themselves, especially of the mythical type, can give spiritual nourishment without imparting abstract meaning... As Naomi Lewis has written, the books are 'intoxicating' to all but the most relentlessly unimaginative readers, and must be judged the most sustained achievement in fantasy for children by a 20th century author" (Carpenter, p. 370). Carpenter, Humphrey (ed.), Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, (1995).