Who is the protagonist named Ransom in C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy?

Elwin Ransom is the protagonist named Ransom in C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy.

Ransom is the central character of Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. In the first novel he is a philologist who is abducted and taken to Mars, which the inhabitants call Malacandra. Later books place him in further conflicts involving Earth, other worlds, and spiritual powers.

Lewis based aspects of the character on his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, including the academic’s name and some of his scholarly interests. Ransom is not simply a science-fiction adventurer; his linguistic expertise and moral choices are essential to the trilogy’s plot.

The trilogy is sometimes called the Cosmic Trilogy. Mark Studdock, another academic, is a major character in That Hideous Strength, but he is not Ransom’s full name or the trilogy’s principal protagonist.