The Silver Chair

The Silver Chair is a children's portal fantasy novel written by British author C. S. Lewis and published by Geoffrey Bles in 1953. It was the fourth of seven novels published in The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956), but became volume six in recent editions sequenced in chronological order to Narnian history.

Macmillan US published a revised American edition within the calendar year. realizing that the Green Lady was herself the serpent who killed his mother. Rilian leads the travellers to escape from Underland. The gnomes, who had also been magically enslaved by the Lady, are now freed by her death and joyfully return to their home even deeper in the earth: a land called Bism. One of them shows Rilian's party a route to the surface, and Rilian returns to Cair Paravel as King Caspian is returning home. Caspian is reunited with his long-lost son but dies just after giving his blessing. Rilian is then declared King of Narnia amid the weeping crowd.

Aslan appears and congratulates Eustace and Jill on achieving their goal, then returns them to the stream in his country where Jill first met him. The body of King Caspian appears in the stream, and Aslan instructs Eustace to drive a thorn into the lion's paw. Eustace obeys, and Aslan's blood flows over the dead King, who is revived and returned to youth. Aslan promises Eustace and Jill that, while they have to return to their own world for a while, they will one day return to Aslan's Country to stay. He then allows Caspian to accompany Eustace and Jill back to their own world for a brief time, where they drive off the bullies before Caspian returns to Aslan's Country. Experiment House becomes a well-managed school, and Eustace and Jill remain good friends.

Back in Narnia, Rilian buries his father and mourns him. The kingdom goes on to have many happy years, but Puddleglum "often pointed out that bright mornings brought on wet afternoons and that you couldn't expect good times to last."

Main characters

Jill Pole – A pupil at Experiment House who is found by Eustace Scrubb, crying, after she is bullied by a gang of children.
Eustace Scrubb – Appeared in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and is a cousin of the four Pevensie siblings from the earlier stories. Became a much nicer person after his brief time as an enchanted dragon in the previous story.
Puddleglum – A pessimistic Marsh-wiggle who helps Jill and Eustace on their quest. He guides them and keeps them on track. He represents common sense and the voice of reason.
The Lady of the Green Kirtle – The ruler of Underland, who plans to conquer Narnia with its rightful heir under her spell at her side.
Prince Rilian – Heir to the Narnian throne, who was captured by the Lady of the Green Kirtle and enslaved in her Underworld.
Aslan – The Lion who created Narnia; the only character to appear in every book.
King Caspian – Elderly King of Narnia who appeared in Prince Caspian as a boy and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as a young man; in The Silver Chair he is sad because his only son was taken from him 10 years earlier just after the death of his wife from a serpent attack.
Glimfeather – a large talking Owl who spots Eustace and Jill during their arrival from Aslan's eastern country; he helps them by bringing them to a Parliament of Owls, where the history of Rilian is explained, and then by helping to carry them to meet Puddleglum. His speech often rhymes with the onomatopoeic call of owls, "to-whoo!" ("There's something magic about you two. I saw you arrive: you flew.").

Background

The Silver Chair was the fifth Narnia book to be written, even though it would be published as the fourth. Lewis wrote The Silver Chair during his Christmas vacation in 1950 and had completed it by early March of the following year. Before deciding on The Silver Chair for its title, he also considered The Wild Waste Lands, News under Narnia, Gnomes under Narnia, and Night under Narnia. Night under Narnia had been a suggestion from his friend and fellow children's author, Roger Lancelyn Green, who also left feedback on the draft manuscript.

Film, television, or theatrical adaptations

The BBC produced a TV series, which aired in late 1990. It was the fourth and last of the Narnia books that the BBC adapted for television.

On 1 October 2013, The C.S. Lewis Company announced that it had entered into an agreement with The Mark Gordon Company to jointly develop and produce The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair, following the film series' mirroring of the novel's publication order (in contrast to Walden Media's initial pushing for The Magician's Nephew during planning for a fourth film). Mark Gordon and Douglas Gresham along with Vincent Sieber, the Los Angeles–based director of The C.S. Lewis Company, will serve as producers and work with The Mark Gordon Company on developing the script. On 5 December 2013, it was announced that David Magee would write the screenplay. In January 2016, Gordon said the film will serve as a 'reboot' of the film franchise. It was announced that Sony Pictures and Entertainment One will finance the fourth film with both Mark Gordon Company and C.S. Lewis Company. In April 2017, it was announced that Joe Johnston would be directing the fourth film.

Other

The band Silverchair named themselves after the novel.

Notes

References

Sources

External links

—immediately, the full-colour C. S. Lewis centenary edition