The Magician's Nephew

Digory Kirke, newly arrived in London and anxious over his sick mother, befriends his neighbor Polly Plummer during a rainy summer. While exploring an attic passage, the children miscalculate their route and enter the forbidden study of Digory’s Uncle Andrew Ketterley. Uncle Andrew locks them in and tricks Polly into touching a yellow ring, causing her to vanish. He then reveals to Digory that the rings are made from dust connected to another world: yellow rings send travelers away, while green rings bring them back. Because Polly has no green ring, Digory must follow her with two green rings if she is to return.

Digory touches a yellow ring and finds Polly in a quiet, sunlit forest filled with pools. The place makes them drowsy and forgetful, but they eventually remember London, Uncle Andrew, and the rings. They realize the forest is a place between worlds, with each pool leading somewhere different. After marking the pool that returns to their own world, they test another and enter the ruined world of Charn.

Charn is cold, silent, and lit by a dying red sun. In a vast hall the children find seated royal figures whose faces grow increasingly proud and cruel, ending with a fierce, beautiful queen. A bell and hammer stand beneath an inscription daring anyone to strike. Polly urges caution, but Digory, provoked by curiosity and pride, rings the bell. Its terrible note shakes the palace and awakens the final figure: Jadis, last Queen of Charn.

Jadis leads the children through the collapsing palace and reveals that she destroyed all life in Charn by speaking the Deplorable Word, a secret magic that killed every living thing except the speaker. She sees no wrong in this, claiming rulers are above ordinary laws. When she learns of the children’s younger world, she determines to conquer it. Digory and Polly try to escape with the rings, but Jadis clings to Polly and is carried into the Wood between the Worlds, then grabs Digory and is brought into London.

In London, Jadis’s physical strength and pride terrify Uncle Andrew, whom she treats as a petty magician and servant. She demands transport, fine clothes, jewels, and slaves, and soon creates chaos in the street by commandeering a hansom cab and its horse, Strawberry. Her magic cannot blast people in London, but she wields a bar torn from a lamp-post and fights the police. Digory, determined to remove her, seizes her heel while Polly uses the yellow ring. The spell carries not only Jadis but also Uncle Andrew, the cabby, and Strawberry into the Wood. When Strawberry wanders into a pool, Polly switches to the green rings, and the whole party enters a dark, empty world.

In that darkness a Voice begins to sing. Stars appear, dawn rises, and a new sun reveals a bare valley. A great Lion is singing the world into being. Jadis hates and fears the stronger Magic; Uncle Andrew cowers and schemes; the children and the cabby watch in awe. As the Lion’s song changes, grass, trees, flowers, animals, birds, and insects spring from the ground. Jadis hurls the iron bar at the Lion, but it does no harm and falls to the earth, where it grows into a lamp-post. The Lion selects pairs of animals, breathes on them, and awakens them to speech and reason, naming the new land Narnia.

The Lion, Aslan, gives Narnia to the Talking Beasts and warns them not to mistreat ordinary beasts or fall back into beastliness. A Jackdaw’s misplaced comment becomes the first joke, and Aslan blesses laughter. He calls a council because evil has entered the new world. Digory, desperate to save his mother, rides Strawberry toward Aslan. Meanwhile, the Talking Beasts encounter Uncle Andrew, who has made himself unable to understand their speech and hears only animal noises. They mistake him for a strange sort of creature, eventually planting and watering him in comic confusion.

Digory asks Aslan for something to heal his mother, but Aslan first requires him to admit how Jadis came to Narnia. Digory confesses that he woke her through curiosity and brought her with the rings. Aslan says evil entered Narnia through Adam’s race and that Adam’s race must help repair the harm. He summons the cabby’s wife from London, names the cabby Frank and his wife Helen, and appoints them Narnia’s first King and Queen because of their humility, courage, and fairness.

Aslan then gives Digory a task: he must fetch an apple from a far western garden so that a protective tree can be planted in Narnia. Aslan transforms Strawberry into Fledge, a winged horse, who carries Digory and Polly westward. After a night in the mountains, they reach the sacred garden. Digory enters alone, reads the warning to take fruit only for others, and plucks a silver apple for Aslan. Inside he encounters Jadis, who has eaten one of the apples and gained strength. She tempts him to eat it and rule with her, then urges him to steal it for his mother. Digory nearly yields, but her suggestion that he abandon Polly exposes her wickedness, and he remembers his promise to Aslan and his mother’s hatred of theft. He refuses and returns with the apple.

Aslan praises Digory’s obedience and has him throw the apple toward the riverbank. The company then crowns King Frank and Queen Helen with crowns made by Dwarfs from magical gold and silver trees. The apple grows into Narnia’s protective Tree, whose fragrance drives Jadis far away. Aslan explains that the fruit grants lasting life, but when stolen it becomes a curse to an evil heart; even if Digory had stolen it for his mother, the result would have brought misery. Because Digory obeyed, Aslan allows him to take an apple from the new Tree as a rightful gift to heal her.

Aslan returns Digory, Polly, and Uncle Andrew to the Wood between the Worlds, shows them Charn’s vanished pool as a warning, and commands them to bury the rings. Back in London, Digory gives the Apple to his mother. She eats it, sleeps naturally, and begins a remarkable recovery. Digory buries the core in the garden, and Polly helps bury all the rings around it. The tree that grows there bears wonderful fruit, though its magic fades. Digory’s father returns after inheriting wealth, and the family moves to the country. Years later, when the tree is blown down, Digory has a wardrobe made from its wood. In Narnia, King Frank and Queen Helen’s reign begins a long peace, while Uncle Andrew gives up magic and becomes somewhat kinder.