Which C.S. Lewis novel opened his Space Trilogy in 1938?

Out of the Silent Planet opened C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy in 1938. It was the first of the three novels and introduced the philologist Elwin Ransom.

The story begins when Ransom is abducted and taken to Malacandra, a planet that humans commonly call Mars. Lewis uses the planetary setting to explore language, morality, colonial attitudes, and humanity’s place in creation.

Perelandra followed in 1943, and That Hideous Strength completed the trilogy in 1945. The books are connected by characters and themes, but their settings and narrative styles differ substantially.

Readers sometimes call the series the Ransom Trilogy because Ransom is its central recurring figure. “Space Trilogy” is the commonly used title for the group, while The Dark Tower is an unfinished Lewis time-travel fragment and not one of the trilogy’s three published novels.