The Chronicles of Narnia Book Series Statistics

Since its first publication, over 120 million copies of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis have been sold worldwide.
It has been estimated that the book series’ author sold over 200 million copies of his books in total.
The Chronicles of Narnia accounts for around 60% of his total book sales.
C.S Lewis took over 8 years to write the Narnia book series but just 3 months to write its first published title, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
After C.S Lewis’ death, he left his estate to his brother Warren and it was later passed on to Lewis’ two step-sons.
One of his step-sons, Douglas Gresham, was also involved as a co-producer for Narnia’s film series (2005-2010).
The film adaptations of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Prince Caspian (2008) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) had a combined budget of $560 million and grossed over $1.58 billion worldwide.
Although there were initially plans to continue the series, in late 2018 Netflix and the C. S. Lewis Company made an agreement to develop a new series of film and TV adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia.
It is estimated that Netflix paid slightly under $250 million for the rights to all of the Narnia books for the series.
In 2021, a complete set of first-edition Narnia books in very good condition was sold for £48,000 ($65,760).

The Chronicles of Narnia books in order

There are a total of seven books within The Chronicles of Narnia book series.
The series was published between 1950 and 1956.
- The first 5 books released in the series were originally published by Geoffrey Bles.
- The last 2 books released in the series were originally published by The Bodley Head.
- As of 2023, the entire series is published by HarperCollins.
The 6th Narnia publication, The Magician’s Nephew, was possibly the most difficult for C.S. Lewis to write.
Whereas the other Narnia books were written between 1948 and 1953, The Magician’s Nephew was written over 5-years with breaks in its progress, between 1949 and 1954.
All of the books in the series were illustrated by Pauline Baynes, who also worked alongside J. R. R. Tolkien.
She sold her work for a flat fee of £100 ($369) per book at the time to Lewis’ publishers instead of negotiating a royalties deal which could have made her a significantly higher level of income.

#	Date published	Title	Original publisher	Page count	Audiobook length
1	16 October, 1950	The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	Geoffrey Bles	172	4h 21m
2	15 October, 1951	Prince Caspian	Geoffrey Bles	195	4h 40m
3	15 September, 1952	The Voyage of the Dawn Treader	Geoffrey Bles	223	5h 50m
4	7 September, 1953	The Silver Chair	Geoffrey Bles	217	5h 25m
5	6 September, 1954	The Horse and His Boy	Geoffrey Bles	199	4h 41m
6	2 May, 1955	The Magician’s Nephew	The Bodley Head	183	3h 57m
7	4 September, 1956	The Last Battle	The Bodley Head	184	4h 49m

The Chronicles of Narnia is a fantasy series about a magical land called Narnia.
The land contains breathtaking landscapes alongside animals that can talk and other mythical creatures.
One of the key themes of the series is an ongoing battle between the powers of good and evil.
Aslan often represents goodness as a noble and powerful lion.
This is contrasted by the White Witch who represents evil as a sorceress that strives to control the land.

Chronological order became popular after the death of C.S: Lewis. Its order is as follows:

Typically, American editions have used publication order whilst British editions used chronological order.
C.S. Lewis had suggested in a 1957 letter that the reading order of the series does not have great significance.
However in general, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is considered to be the best book to read first by both fans and scholars of the series.