Ransom is the surname of the central space traveler in C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy.
Elwin Ransom is the protagonist of Out of the Silent Planet, the first novel in the trilogy, published in 1938. He is a philologist who is abducted and taken to Mars, called Malacandra in the story. The novel combines planetary adventure with philosophical and theological ideas.
Ransom returns in the second book, Perelandra, published in 1943, and in the third, That Hideous Strength, published in 1945. The trilogy shifts from interplanetary exploration toward a wider conflict involving science, power, language, and spiritual forces.
Readers sometimes remember Weston or Devine because both are prominent in the first novel, but neither is the series protagonist. Ransom’s scholarly background is also significant: his knowledge of language helps him communicate and interpret the civilizations he encounters.