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Synopsis

In his acclaimed collection Tales Before Tolkien, Douglas A. Anderson illuminated the sources, inspirations, and influences that fired J.R.R. Tolkien's genius. Now Anderson turns his attention to Tolkien's colleague and friend C. S. Lewis, whose influence on modern fantasy, through his beloved Narnia books, is second only to Tolkien's own.

In many ways, Lewis's influence has been even wider than Tolkien's. For in addition to the Narnia series, Lewis wrote groundbreaking works of science fiction, urban fantasy, and religious allegory, and he came to be regarded as among the most important Christian writers of the twentieth century. It will come as no surprise, then, that such a wide-ranging talent drew inspiration from a variety of sources. Here are twenty of the tributaries that fed Lewis's unique talent, among them:

"The Wood That Time Forgot: The Enchanted Wood," taken from a never-before-published fantasy by Lewis's biographer and friend, Roger Lancelyn Green, that directly inspired The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; E. Nesbit's charming "The Aunt and Amabel," in which a young girl enters another world by means of a wardrobe; "The Snow Queen," by Hans Christian Andersen, featuring the abduction of a young boy by a woman as cruel as she is beautiful; and many more, including works by Charles Dickens, Kenneth Grahame, G. K. Chesterton, and George MacDonald, of whom Lewis would write, "I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master."

Full of fascinating insights into Lewis's life and fiction, Tales Before Narnia is the kind of book that will be treasured by children and adults alike and passed down lovingly from generation to generation.

Contents:

• ix - Introduction (Tales Before Narnia: The Roots of Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction) - essay by Douglas A. Anderson
• 3 - Tegner's Drapa - (1849) - poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• 7 - The Aunt and Amabel - (1909) - shortfiction by E. Nesbit
• 17 - The Snow Queen - (1844) - novelette by Hans Christian Andersen (trans. of Snedronningen 1845)
• 45 - The Magic Mirror - (1858) - shortstory by George MacDonald
• 63 - Undine - (1818) - novella by Baron Friedrich de La Motte Fouqué (trans. of Undine: Eine Erzählung 1811) [as by Friedrich De La Motte Fouque ]
• 129 - Letters from Hell: Letter III - (1887) - shortstory by Valdemar Thisted
• 135 - Fastosus and Avaro - (1863) - shortstory by John Macgowan
• 147 - The Tapestried Chamber; or, The Lady in the Sacque - (1910) - shortstory by Sir Walter Scott (variant of The Tapestried Chamber 1828)
• 161 - The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton - (1836) - shortstory by Charles Dickens
• 173 - The Child and the Giant - (1988) - shortstory by Owen Barfield
• 183 - A King's Lesson - (1886) - shortstory by William Morris
• 191 - The Waif Woman - (1914) - shortstory by Robert Louis Stevenson
• 207 - First Whisper of The Wind in the Willows (excerpt) - (1908) - shortfiction by Kenneth Grahame
• 239 - The Wish House - (1924) - shortstory by Rudyard Kipling
• 257 - Et in Sempiternum Pereant - (1935) - shortstory by Charles Williams
• 269 - The Dragon's Visit - (1937) - poem by J. R. R. Tolkien
• 275 - The Coloured Lands - (1925) - shortstory by G. K. Chesterton
• 283 - The Man Who Lived Backwards - (1938) - shortstory by Charles F. Hall
• 301 - The Wood That Time Forgot: The Enchanted Wood - (2008) - shortstory by Roger Lancelyn Green
• 313 - The Dream Dust Factory - (1947) - shortstory by William Lindsay Gresham

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