HarperCollins to Commission New Narnia Books

Fans of C. S. Lewis's much-loved The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe—and the six other novels that make up The Chronicles of Narnia—know that however grim the odds, good always triumphs over evil. But Lewis's enchanted land of Narnia may soon be facing its thorniest challenge: 21st-century global marketing.

HarperCollins, Lewis's primary English-language publisher, his stepsons, Douglas and David Gresham, and the C. S. Lewis Company, which safeguards the rights to the late English author's works, have agreed to commission new novels, chapter books, and picture books based on the original Narnia tales, penned in the 1950s. Although some of Lewis's stories are now more than 50 years old, they're showing no sign of aging. Last year, librarians, teachers, and parents in the U.K. voted the series' first volume, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the most influential children's book of the 20th century.

HarperCollins and the C. S. Lewis Company are currently considering writers for the new Narnia books, says Susan Katz, president of HarperCollins children's division, but the lineup has not been firmed up. If all goes as planned, says Katz, the first new Narnia books will be on library and bookstore shelves in the fall of 2003.

But some critics are harrumphing over the new Lewis-less versions. "It's ridiculous," A. N. Wilson, one of Lewis's biographers, told London's Sunday Times, "and I'm sure Lewis would have thought so, too."