Which fictional protagonist appears in C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy?

Elwin Ransom is the principal protagonist of C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy. He first appears in Out of the Silent Planet, published in 1938, and returns in Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.

Ransom is a philologist and university professor whose adventures take him from Earth to other worlds. Across the trilogy, Lewis combines planetary romance, Christian theology, language, and criticism of scientific or political power used without moral restraint.

The character’s name is sometimes confused with Mark Studdock, who is central to That Hideous Strength, or with Weston, an important antagonist in the first two books. Ransom, however, is the recurring central figure linking all three novels.

The books are often called the Cosmic Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy. “Space Trilogy” is the most common general name, while the protagonist’s surname explains the alternative label “Ransom Trilogy.”