“The Magician’s Nephew is chronologically the first book in the Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. Set about 50 Years before the events in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, it describes how the land of Narnia came into being.
If you watched the recent movie “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, you might have wondered about two details: why does a wardrobe lead into the magical land of Narnia, and why does Lucy find a lantern burning in the middle of a forest?
“The Magician”s Nephew” answers these questions (though I will not give the answers away in this review) and many more. The novel contains the genesis (literally) of the entire Narnia cycle.
The story begins in late 19th-century London, when two children, Polly and Digory accidentally enter the secret study of Digory’s eccentric uncle Andrew while exploring a passage that connects the attics of several houses.
The uncle is actually a magician, and he tricks Polly and his nephew into performing an experiment involving magic rings. These rings transport the children into the “Wood between the Worlds”, a quiet forest that...