What is the first book in C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy?

Out of the Silent Planet is the first book in C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy.

Published in 1938, Out of the Silent Planet introduces Elwin Ransom, a Cambridge philologist who is abducted and taken to Mars, called Malacandra in the story. The novel combines planetary adventure with philosophical and theological ideas about language, morality, and humanity’s place in the universe.

The two sequels are Perelandra, published in 1943, and That Hideous Strength, published in 1945. Together, the three novels are often called the Space Trilogy or Cosmic Trilogy. They are separate from Lewis’s Narnia books, which are children’s fantasy novels rather than adult planetary fiction.

The title’s “silent planet” is Earth, viewed from the perspective of other worlds. Lewis was responding partly to the darker scientific romances of his era, offering a story in which space travel leads to moral and spiritual questions rather than simple conquest.