What is the title of the first book in C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy?
Answer
Out of the Silent Planet
Out of the Silent Planet is the first book in C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy. It was published in 1938 and introduces the philologist Elwin Ransom.
In the novel, Ransom is kidnapped and taken to Malacandra, the planet humans call Mars. The story combines science fiction with Lewis’s interest in language, morality, theology, and the medieval idea of a morally ordered cosmos.
The second volume, Perelandra, appeared in 1943, and the third, That Hideous Strength, followed in 1945. The three books are linked by characters and themes, but their settings and narrative styles differ considerably.
The phrase “silent planet” refers to Earth as viewed within the trilogy’s imagined planetary history. Readers sometimes reverse the titles of the second and third books or confuse the trilogy with Lewis’s separate fantasy novels. Out of the Silent Planet is the opening volume, not a Narnia book.