Who was the dedicatee of C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?

Lucy Barfield was the dedicatee of C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Lewis dedicated the book to Lucy Barfield, the adopted daughter of his longtime friend Owen Barfield. The dedication addresses her directly and imagines that she will outgrow fairy tales before returning to them later in life. This personal inscription helped connect the fictional Lucy Pevensie with a real child known to Lewis’s circle.

Lucy Barfield was born in 1935 and was adopted by Owen and Maud Barfield. Owen Barfield was a philosopher, writer, and close associate of Lewis, as well as a member of the Inklings. The dedication is therefore both a family gesture and a link to Lewis’s literary network.

Lucy Barfield should not be confused with Lucy Pevensie, the fictional girl who first enters Narnia through the wardrobe. Lewis named the character Lucy, but the dedicatee and the character were different people. The novel was published in 1950, when Barfield was still a child.