Out of the Silent Planet
First edition
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| Author | C. S. Lewis |
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| Cover artist | Harold Jones |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Space Trilogy |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Published | 1938 (John Lane (first)) |
| Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback) |
| Pages | 264 pp (first edition, hard) |
| Preceded by | None |
| Followed by | Perelandra |
Out of the Silent Planet is a science fiction novel by the British author C. S. Lewis, published in 1938 by John Lane, The Bodley Head. Five years later it was published in the U.S. (MacMillan, 1943). Two sequels were published in 1943 and 1945, completing the so-called Cosmic Trilogy or Space Trilogy.
The fragment of another sequel, evidently set prior to Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, was published as "The Dark Tower" in a 1977 collection of short fiction by Lewis (deceased 1963) and essays by four others, The Dark Tower and Other Stories (Collins, )
The trilogy was inspired and influenced by David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus (1920).
According to biographer A. N. Wilson, Lewis wrote the novel after a conversation with J.R.R. Tolkien in which both men lamented the state of contemporary fiction. They agreed that Lewis would write a space-travel story, and Tolkien would write a time-travel one. Tolkien's story only exists as a fragment, published in The Lost Road and other writings (1987) edited by his son Christopher.
A "NOTE" precedes the text of the story: "Certain slighting references to earlier stories of this type which will be found in the following pages have been put there for purely dramatic purposes. The author would be sorry if any reader supposed he was too stupid to have enjoyed Mr. H. G. Wells's fantasies or too ungrateful to acknowledge his debt to them."
At the front door of a house in the country, Ransom hears shouting and struggling inside. When he hurries around back, he sees Weston and Devine trying to force Harry, a dull-witted young man, to enter a structure on the property against his will. Ransom intervenes, and Devine sees him as a better prospect than Harry for what he and Weston have in mind. With Weston's grudging consent, Devine offers Ransom a drink and accommodations for the night.
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Wikipedia