Which 1938 novel began C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy, also called the Space Trilogy?

Out of the Silent Planet began C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy, also called the Space Trilogy.

Published in 1938, Out of the Silent Planet introduces Elwin Ransom, a Cambridge philologist who is abducted and taken to the planet Mars. In Lewis’s fictional terminology, Mars is called Malacandra. The novel combines science fiction, theology, philology, and planetary adventure.

The next books are Perelandra, published in 1943, and That Hideous Strength, published in 1945. Together they follow Ransom and explore moral and spiritual conflicts on an interplanetary scale. The trilogy is separate from The Chronicles of Narnia, which Lewis began publishing in 1950.

A frequent mistake is to name Perelandra as the first volume because it is sometimes remembered as the most overtly symbolic entry. It is actually the second book. Out of the Silent Planet established both the setting and Ransom as the central figure.