The Last Battle
.jpg)
First edition dustjacket
|
|
| Author | C. S. Lewis |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Pauline Baynes |
| Cover artist | Pauline Baynes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Chronicles of Narnia |
| Genre | Children's fantasy novel, Christian literature |
| Publisher | The Bodley Head |
|
Publication date
|
4 September 1956 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 184 pp (first edition) 42,854 words (US) |
| ISBN | (full-colour; Collins, 1998) |
| OCLC | 752428300 |
| LC Class | PZ8.L48 Las |
| Preceded by | The Magician's Nephew |
The Last Battle is a high fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis, published by The Bodley Head in 1956. It was the seventh and final novel in The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956). Like the others it was illustrated by Pauline Baynes and her work has been retained in many later editions.
The Last Battle is set almost entirely in the Narnia world and the English children who participate arrive only in the middle of the narrative. The novel is set some 200 Narnian years after The Silver Chair and about 2500 years since the creation of the world narrated in The Magician's Nephew. A false Aslan is set up in the north-western borderlands and conflict between true and false Narnians merges with that between Narnia and Calormen, whose people worship Tash. It concludes with termination of the world by Aslan, after a "last battle" that is practically lost.
Macmillan US published an American edition within the calendar year.
Lewis and The Last Battle won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject. The author wrote to illustrator Baynes, "is it not rather 'our' medal? I'm sure the illustrations were taken into account as well as the text."
Narnia has had peace and prosperity since the reign of King Caspian X, but Roonwit the Centaur warns Tirian, the latest king of Narnia, that strange and evil things are happening to Narnia and that the stars portend ominous developments. In the north of Narnia, an ape named Shift had persuaded a well-meaning but simple-minded donkey called Puzzle to dress in a lion's skin (an echo from Aesop's story of The Ass in the Lion's Skin) and pretend to be the Great Lion Aslan. Using Puzzle as his pawn, Shift convinces the Narnians that he speaks for Aslan and deceives a majority of them into serving the Calormenes and to cut down Talking Trees for lumber. The money will be paid into "Aslan's" treasury, held by Shift, on the pretext that it will be used for the good of the Narnians.
...
Wikipedia