Which 1938 novel by C.S. Lewis begins his science-fiction Space Trilogy?

Out of the Silent Planet is the 1938 novel that begins C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy.

The story follows Elwin Ransom, a Cambridge philologist who is abducted and taken to Malacandra, a planet later identified with Mars. The novel presents an encounter between human civilization and nonhuman cultures shaped by very different moral and spiritual conditions.

Lewis followed it with Perelandra in 1943 and That Hideous Strength in 1945. Together, the three books form a speculative sequence concerned with language, science, power, temptation, and the consequences of evil.

The title can cause confusion because the later books are sometimes listed under the collective title Ransom Trilogy, referring to their central character. Out of the Silent Planet remains the first published installment under either classification.