What inspired Narnia?

C.S. Lewis is perhaps best known for the Chronicles of Narnia. As an author, I’ve often wondered what inspired C.S. Lewis to write Narnia, so I went out and grabbed these five interesting facts I think you’ll enjoy.

1. It Started with a Picture, Not a Story: Lewis stated that the initial inspiration for Narnia didn’t come from a plot idea, but from a specific mental image he’d had since he was a teenager: a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels through a snowy wood. This single image eventually grew into the character of Mr. Tumnus and the world of Narnia itself.

2. Real-Life Evacuees Sparked the Pevensies’ Journey: During World War II, Lewis hosted several children evacuated from London at his home, The Kilns, near Oxford. This real-life experience directly inspired the premise of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where the Pevensie children are sent away from London during the Blitz to stay in an old professor’s country house.

3. Aslan as a “Supposal,” Not Strict Allegory: While Narnia is rich with Christian themes, Lewis described Aslan not as a direct allegory for Christ in our world but as a “supposal.” He posed the question: What might Christ be like if there were a world like Narnia, and He chose to incarnate, die, and rise again there? This allowed him creative freedom while exploring profound theological ideas.

4. Tolkien (Initially) Didn’t Like It: Lewis was close friends with J.R.R. Tolkien (author of The Lord of the Rings), and they were both members of the literary group “The Inklings,” where they often read their works-in-progress aloud. While Lewis was a great encourager of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, Tolkien was initially critical of Narnia, finding Lewis’s mixing of different mythologies (fauns, Father Christmas, talking animals, nymphs) rather jarring and inconsistent.

5. Childhood World-Building Paved the Way: Long before Narnia, C.S. Lewis and his older brother, Warren (“Warnie”), spent their childhood inventing and chronicling a detailed imaginary world called “Boxen.” This world was populated by talking animals, particularly dressed animals involved in complex social and political scenarios. This early experience in collaborative world-building undoubtedly laid the groundwork for Lewis’s later creation of the much more fantastical and meaningful Narnia.

I’ve been asked, “When do you set time aside for writing?” My response is, “Everything is writing.” As you can see from the life of C.S. Lewis, his childhood and adulthood experiences were the inspirationation for his stories. If Lewis had not lived the life he lived, he would not have written the stories he wrote.

We love and highly recommend the Chronicles of Narnia. If you’ve never read the books, now is a great time to start.