C.S. Lewis created the fictional world of Narnia in The Chronicles of Narnia. Narnia is a realm populated by humans, talking animals, mythical creatures, and rulers whose stories unfold across seven connected novels.
The world is introduced to readers through a wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but its fictional history begins earlier in The Magician’s Nephew. That book describes Narnia’s creation by Aslan and explains how the world’s first human visitors arrive there.
Narnia is sometimes confused with Middle-earth because both settings belong to major twentieth-century British fantasy traditions and both authors were friends. Middle-earth, however, was created by J.R.R. Tolkien, not Lewis. Earthsea belongs to Ursula K. Le Guin, while Westeros belongs to George R.R. Martin.
Lewis’s Narnia stories use a mixture of classical mythology, fairy-tale conventions, biblical imagery, and original invention. The name Narnia may have been inspired by the ancient Italian town of Narni, although Lewis did not provide a definitive explanation.