Which C.S. Lewis book was his 1945 novel about a talking lion and four children?

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was C.S. Lewis’s 1945 novel about a talking lion and four children.

The story follows Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie after Lucy discovers a passage into Narnia through a wardrobe. There they encounter Aslan, the White Witch, and a land trapped in a long winter. The book introduces Narnia to readers through the children’s first visit, although later publication orders place another novel first in the story’s internal chronology.

The title’s “lion” is Aslan, while the witch is the White Witch, also called Jadis. The novel is often described as the first-published Narnia book: it appeared in 1950, not 1945. Lewis’s earlier 1945 publication was the Christian apologetic work That Hideous Strength, so the date in this question identifies the Narnia novel’s publication year incorrectly?