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

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

Published in 1938, Out of the Silent Planet introduces Elwin Ransom, a philologist who is kidnapped and taken to Mars, called Malacandra in the novel. The story combines planetary adventure with philosophical and theological ideas about human nature, language, and the dangers of scientific ambition without moral restraint.

The book was followed by Perelandra in 1943 and That Hideous Strength in 1945. Together, these novels are commonly called the Space Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy. Their central character is named Ransom because the series develops themes involving sacrifice, redemption, and the moral fate of humanity.

A common mix-up is treating The Dark Tower as another completed Ransom Trilogy novel. Lewis wrote that unfinished fragment separately; it is not one of the trilogy’s three published novels. Out of the Silent Planet therefore begins the sequence, rather than Perelandra or the later Earth-based conclusion.