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Tales Before Narnia: The Roots of Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction

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The twenty-one short stories, poems, essays and other writings that make up this collection are considered by editor Douglas A. Anderson as the sub-title states The Roots of Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction. Though this reviewer has some doubts about that assertion, the entries are well written and entertaining from a who's who of literature (Dickens, Tolkien, Grahame, Stevenson, Wells, Potter, Clarke and Kipling, etc) even though the authors were in many case key players (no novels are included which in my opinion would be more likely to be influential). The contributions are excellent with the little notes prefacing them adding to the fun as Mr. Anderson explains the author's link to C.S. Lewis. The anthology provides a glimpse into the science fiction-fantasy short writings that were out there prior to Narnia, written in the early 1950s. As he did with the equally delightful TALES BEFORE TOLKIEN, Mr. Anderson provides a strong, enlightening and fun to read compilation; hard to resist "a never before published story" The Wood That Time Forgot: The Enchanted Wood by Roger Lancelyn Green (Lewis' biographer) that inspired THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE.

Harriet Klausner

Tales Before Narnia. Edited by Douglas A. Anderson. Del Rey: Ballantine. (2008) 339 pages. $15.00

Reviewed by Ryder W. Miller

Due to the recent J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis movies there has been a voluminous amount of new public C.S. Lewis scholarship available, as if there had not been enough at the library and in the journals already. Walter Hooper has made three large volumes of C.S. Lewis letters available. From Narnia to Space Odyssey, by myself, argues that C.S. Lewis was inspired by a dialogue with Arthur C. Clarke sending him in a new direction (reread the forward to That Hideous Strength, ie. the scientific colleague referred to may have been have been Clarke or a like minded colleague). Allan Jacobs points out in his biography that C.S. Lewis was also a Narnian. Michael Ward claims to have a discovered an astrological/astronomical underpinning to the Narnia series in the scholarly and intriguing Planet Narnia. In Narnia and the Fields of Arbol, The Environmental Visions of C.S. Lewis, Mathew T. Dickerson & David O'Hara argue that C.S. Lewis should be considered a modern and influential environmentalist based on his science fiction and fantasy books which almost everybody has encountered. Equally brilliant is Tales Before Narnia, The Roots of Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction which includes many classic stories and writers that inspired C.S. Lewis.

Here one will find works by the likes of George McDonald and G.K. Chesterton who Lewis read avidly and apparently studied, emulated and served. There are also poems and stories by fellow Inklings J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams, and lesser known Inklings such as Owen Barfield and others. One will be surprised by these stories that show that there was a rich fantastical legacy, not just a mythological legacy, before the Inklings. C.S. Lewis in some people's opinions will be elevated to the position of someone who could reach the masses, for others he will be appear as not quite so original and like Tolkien, maybe even grubby, to put it kindly.

But neither man was shy about sharing with their fans their literary debts.

The included stories do not have the drive or adventurousness as Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, but they do work as parts of a jigsaw puzzle, Narnia and Lewis being the constructed image showing what Lewis had made public by his fame and success. The book also serves as revenge for the loyal or weird reader, against the know it alls and scholars, who also encountered Lewis along their vicarious adventurous travels. One could better say what else should have been in here or what was missing or why something was missing, but there is also a list of recommended writers at the end.

Here one will find the continuity which Narnia was a part of, but these are not the type of stories that one will sit on the edge of their seats to read. Tolkien was called "cruelly suspenseful" by a critic, while Lewis was not known for writing stories merely to entertain. They both sought to fill a void that was missing, ie. fantastical stories for those who did not want to be "jailed" by the modern realism, but Lewis also turned to fantasy as a means to expound upon theological issues.

One will find here all sorts of components to Lewis's Chronicles (White Witches, magic wardrobes, magical beings, talking animals, kings, battles, magical woods, etc.... ), but not necessarily the continence of a theological argument. The lion, Aslan, is missing, but Lewis at times was also Aslan. In the minds of many Lewis elevated fantasy by infusing it with a coherent moral philosophy, others are detractors because they would have preferred to have just been entertained.

Anderson, as with Tales Before Tolkien, does a fine job of showing that we were not quite as weird as we thought we were reading all those fantastical tales. Many well established writers contributed to this rich legacy of writing. There were many readers before us and there is a tradition of doing so. Because of Lewis and Tolkien we are even less weird then we were in times past.

Because of Anderson, the loyal fantasy reader still has something to add to the discussion, some insights that were gained more enjoyably.

Edited by Douglas Anderson, "Tales Before Narnia" is a companion piece to Tales Before Tolkien and provides an interesting array of poems, short stories, fairytales and novel experts that C.S. Lewis read prior to or during his literary career. It is subtitled "Classic Stories That Inspired C.S. Lewis," though this is a tad inaccurate. It's really an anthology of stories that inspired him, stories that he may or may not have read, stories from authors that he appreciated, and stories written by his friends. Though many of the chosen pieces are apt, and provide a template of sorts for components of Lewis's works (particularly The Chronicles of Narnia, Space Trilogy, and The Screwtape Letters), others are slightly more obscure.

There are some obvious choices, such as The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson, and "The Aunt and Amabel" by E.S. Nesbit (which involves a little girl discovering a magical world at the back of her wardrobe). Likewise George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton and William Morris are present, who Lewis often credited for his literary style and imaginative techniques, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Tegner Drapa," a poem whose opening line is said to have awoken Lewis's lifetime longing for the north and its mysteries.

And of course, there are works from his core group of friends, "The Inklings" including a poem from Tolkien, a short story from Charles Williams, a fairytale from Owen Barfield (whose daughter was the god-daughter of Lewis and the namesake of Lucy Pevensie), and a chapter from Roger Lancelyn Green's "The Wood that Time Forgot," (who was not an Inkling, but a close friend), a hitherto unpublished story that was written prior to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and which heavily influenced several aspects of Lewis's plot.

There are some odd choices; it's apt that Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows is present, though I wonder why it appears in its original form (the letters Grahame sent to his son, which recount Mr Toad's adventures) rather than an expert from the book itself. Though they were published in his lifetime, Lewis may not have read the original letters, and I feel a better choice would have been the inclusion of the chapter in which Ratty and Mole meet the god Pan, a chapter full of holy spirituality and rapture, an atmosphere that Lewis drew heavily upon when he wrote of the feelings of adoration, wonder and fear that Aslan awoke in his followers. Likewise, though William Morris is included, it's strange that the story chosen is "A King's Lesson", a tale that has little bearing on anything in Lewis, especially when the more obvious choice would have been something from The Well at the World's End, which was a direct precursor to the Wood between the Worlds in The Magician's Nephew.

Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott are included, two authors that Lewis admired, but the chosen stories bear little resemblance in content or tone to what Lewis himself wrote (in fact, the introduction to Stevenson's "The Waif Woman" states that "Lewis made no mention of this particular story.") Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling are also present, two writers that Lewis had mixed feelings on.

On the whole, "Tales Before Narnia" is less of what inspired Lewis's own works, and more of a compilation of what he may have absorbed during the lengthy duration of writing career. That's no bad thing, but again it's not exactly what the title suggests. Each one comes with an introduction that explains each story's connection (however tenuous) with Lewis and why it has been included. Scholars or fans of Lewis's work will find this anthology to be anything from intriguing to enlightening, perhaps just in the sense that it brings one closer to Lewis's reading habits.