Which C.S. Lewis novel, published in 1938, began his science-fiction Space Trilogy?

Out of the Silent Planet, published in 1938, began C.S. Lewis’s science-fiction Space Trilogy.

The novel follows Elwin Ransom, a Cambridge philologist who is abducted and taken to Malacandra, a planet that humans call Mars. There he encounters several intelligent species and learns that Earth is viewed as a fallen or damaged world. The story combines planetary adventure with theological and philosophical questions.

Out of the Silent Planet was published by John Lane in 1938. It was followed by Perelandra in 1943 and That Hideous Strength in 1945. The three books are commonly grouped as the Space Trilogy, although the settings and narrative styles change significantly from one volume to the next.

The novel is sometimes classified simply as science fiction, but Lewis also used older traditions of travel narrative, medieval cosmology, and Christian speculation. Its title refers to Earth, which is “silent” because it has become spiritually isolated from the wider inhabited universe.