What is the name of the main human protagonist in C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy?

Elwin Ransom is the main human protagonist of C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy. Ransom is a philologist and university professor who becomes involved in interplanetary conflicts across the trilogy’s three novels.

He first appears in Out of the Silent Planet, published in 1938. In that novel, Ransom is abducted and taken to Malacandra, the name Lewis gives to Mars. He later returns in Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, where the scope of the conflict expands from planetary travel to spiritual and technological threats affecting Earth.

Ransom is sometimes confused with Mark Studdock, who is a major character in That Hideous Strength, the trilogy’s Earth-centered third volume. Ransom’s name also reflects Lewis’s interest in language: he is a scholar of philology, the historical study of languages. The trilogy blends science fiction, theology, and philosophical speculation rather than functioning as a straightforward space adventure.