Narnia revisited
Sir: I was delighted to read Bel Mooney's wide-ranging praise for C.S. Lewis and the 'Chronicles of Narnia' (14 March). I hope you can set beside her comments these two points.
First a necessary one. The seven books have an ordering besides the one mentioned which follows the chronology of Narnia itself: they were written over several years and can as usefully be read in the order in which they were published. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the first in this sequence: it was written for a child who grew before she was expected to read the other stories, so it is the simplest in its language and its content. Correspondingly, it is the book in which Asian is most clearly introduced and accounted for.
My optional note is more personal. I have recently re-read the books with my daughter, aged six; only when I looked for the next shelf in the bedtime library did I realise that the combination in Narnia of a challenging thesis for both of us, and a story which she could more than follow with no concessions made, is very rare. It was hard to leave C.S. Lewis.
Rodney Tillotson 18 Broadmoor Park, Bath
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