What was the name of C.S. Lewis’s fictional space-travel trilogy protagonist?

Elwin Ransom is the protagonist of C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy. He is a Cambridge philologist who travels beyond Earth and becomes involved in conflicts involving humanity, other worlds, and spiritual powers.

The trilogy consists of Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. Ransom’s experiences begin with his abduction and journey to Mars, called Malacandra in the first novel. The later books move between planetary adventure, theology, philosophy, and a contemporary British setting.

Ransom is sometimes confused with characters from Lewis’s Narnia books because both series include moral conflict and mythic symbolism. The Space Trilogy, however, is science fiction for adults and uses a recurring human protagonist rather than a shared cast of visiting children.

Lewis originally published Out of the Silent Planet in 1938. The trilogy’s ideas were shaped partly by his conversations with J.R.R. Tolkien, especially their shared interest in myth, language, and the possibility of imaginative stories about other planets.