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Magician's Nephew

The Magician's Nephew is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis. Although not the first in The Chronicles of Narnia series, it is the first in the internal chronology.

It is an early example of a prequel. There are many links to the later The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, most notably Digory himself, who, as Professor Kirke, is the owner of the house containing the Wardrobe in the later story.

Readers familiar with Genesis will recognise the parallels to it in Lewis's work. With respect to creation, it also has some core similarities with Ainulindalë, the Song of the Ainur, the story of creation in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, due, presumably, to their both drawing on the Biblical accounts for some of their material.

Synopsis
The story begins in London with two children, Digory and Polly, meeting as neighbours. Digory tells Polly that his mother is dying, and the two become friends over the course of the summer. One day, while exploring the attic which is common to all the adjoining houses in their block, they take the wrong door and surprise Digory's Uncle Andrew in his study. Uncle Andrew, a bumbling self-taught magician, tricks Polly and blackmails Digory into putting on a magic ring, which transports the children into a wood with many pools of water. Initially, the pools appear to be just shallow puddles. However, when the correct ring is worn, the pool of water transports the wearer to a different world. This Wood between Worlds is thus a kind of switching-station for gateways between many worlds. When they discover this, Digory convinces Polly to come explore through some of the other pools with him before they return to Digory's uncle and have their rings confiscated.

When they enter the first pool, they arrive in the midst of an enormous palace in the ruins of the ancient capital city of that world, called Charn. The palace seems devoid of all life until they discover a hall filled with images of all former rulers of Charn. There they find a bell, as well as a sign which at once dares one to ring the bell and also warns not to ring it. Digory falls to the taunt and it awakes one of the statues, that of the evil Queen Jadis. She tells them how the last war of that world had been waged between herself and her sister. After many bloody years her own defeat seemed certain, and in order to prevail she had spoken the incantation known as the Deplorable Word. This word caused all life on Charn to be destroyed but her own, which would sit dormant in the Hall of Images for eternity unless someone woke her from her sleep. The children, upon learning of Jadis' great evil, try to escape back to the Wood. Unfortunately thanks to the 'magnetic effect' the rings have on all wearers, Jadis is able to travel back with them by grabbing hold of Polly's hair. She then follows them to our world where she leads Uncle Andrew on a wild chase through London. Polly is sent to her room as a punishment for being late, but gets out and joins Digory in his efforts to get the evil queen out of London and back to her own world. Ultimately, through the 'magnetism' of the magic rings, not only the queen but also a cab driver, his horse, Andrew, Digory and Polly end up back in the Wood.

Digory draws the whole group into the nearest pool, thinking it leads to Charn. However, when they arrive, they realize it is not Charn but another world that is completely dark and seems to be entirely empty. Jadis quickly recognizes it as a world that has yet to be made. Soon, however, they hear singing which seems to cause the stars to begin to shine and the sun to rise. The visitors can now see the singer for what he is, Aslan, the great lion, and they continue to watch as he breathes life into the world so that animals, plants, and the world itself are created from nothing. Jadis attacks Aslan with an iron lamppost bar brought from London, but cannot kill him and so flees. Aslan selects some animals to become intelligent talking beasts, giving them authority over the dumb beasts. Aslan next sends Digory on a journey to get a special apple to atone for bringing the evil queen into the new world of Narnia. Polly, Digory, and the horse (turned by Aslan into a winged horse) fly to a far away mountain to get the apple from a walled garden. The queen arrives also and tempts Digory to either eat the apple and gain eternal youth, or else use it to cure his dying Mother. The queen has eaten an apple herself, thus becomes immortal. Although tempted, Digory keeps his promise to Aslan and travels back to give him the apple.

Aslan tells Digory that he has done well and instructs him to plant the apple in the ground. He then holds a ceremony to crown the king and queen of Narnia (the cab driver and his wife) while a new tree grows. Aslan explains that this tree will protect Narnia from the Witch: since she took the apple from the original tree in a selfish way, its fruit is now abhorrent to her, and Narnia will thus enjoy an innocent Eden-like period. Aslan tells Digory that a stolen apple would have cured his mother, but that the day would have come later when she would have looked back and said that it would have been better to have died in that illness. He then gives Digory an apple from the tree of protection to take to his mother to cure her of illness, and sends the children and Uncle Andrew back to the Wood between the Worlds, whence they return to London. Digory gives the apple to his mother, who is cured, and buries the apple core in his back yard. He also buries the magic rings, which Aslan has instructed him to safeguard to prevent future misuse.

The apple core grows into a tree, and years later it is blown down in a storm. Digory can't bear to have the tree cut up into firewood so he has it made into a wardrobe, linking the end of the narrative to the first story in the series, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.