What was C.S. Lewis’s first published work of science fiction?

C.S. Lewis’s first published work of science fiction was Out of the Silent Planet.

The novel appeared in 1938 and became the opening volume of the trilogy later known as the Space Trilogy. Its protagonist, Elwin Ransom, is a Cambridge philologist who is kidnapped and transported to Malacandra, Lewis’s fictional Mars. There he discovers intelligent species, unfamiliar languages, and a society that contrasts with the moral disorder of Earth.

Lewis wrote the novel during a period when he and J.R.R. Tolkien discussed the kinds of books they wanted to read and write. Tolkien was working on time-travel fiction, while Lewis turned toward space travel. Their conversations helped encourage Lewis’s science-fiction project, though the novel’s theology and planetary imagery are distinctly his own.

Perelandra followed in 1943 and That Hideous Strength in 1945. The Discarded Image is a nonfiction study of medieval and Renaissance cosmology, not science fiction.