Chronicles of Narnia: Best to Worst Books in the Series

Really? Prince Caspian is a poorly-written hash of a book with only a few positives to come away with. Horse and His Boy on the other hand is an actual three-dimensional story - arguably the best written book on every level in the Chronicles. Your ratings don't make sense.

The Horse and His Boy is by far the best. Narnia isn't just one book to be read like LOTR, it's separate stories that all build on and compliment each other. In The Horse and His Boy, Shasta and Aravis have a beautiful story that begins as an escape for personal reasons and ends up with them saving all of Narnia and Archenland, AND they both end up creating new lives for themselves. It ties in perfectly with LWW by filling in part of the Golden Age of Narnia and adding depth to the universe.

2.The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

This book is amazing for a multitude of reasons. It adds a few characters and fleshes out old one. The plot(s) is very entertaining and ties up a lot of loose ends from the previous book.

3.Prince Caspian

An adventure that as a sequel to the previous book, an introduction to the next, and very much a book of its own.

4.The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

I love this book because of Lucy's faith, Aslan's sacrifice, and Edmund's redemption. Susan never did much and Peter had a huge role in the plot, but not in the book itself.

5.The Silver Chair

It's a great story but it's not an especially happy one. The whole story is filled with mistakes made by the characters and them arguing about how to correct them. They barely make it out alive and almost immediately afterward Caspian, the character that we knew the best from previous books, dies.

6.The Magician's Nephew

7.The Last Battle

Horse and his Boy is actually my favourite. It is precisely the fact that it is so different from the rest of the series as to why it is so good. It also really doesn't get bogged down in plot exposition like Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Prince Caspian. It really starts rolling from page one, and doesn't let up throughout the book.

#2 is Dawn Treader. Again a very different novel from the rest of the series. In some cases because of the sea adventure this plays out like a series of semi-related short stories rather than a unified novel. Some may not like that, I personally love it. You have Lucy and the Magician's book, Eustace and his Dragon Adventures, and the Adventure at the end of the World. This book contains some of Lewis' most vivid imagry, particularly in the last 1/3 of the book.

#3 is The Magician's Nephew which really fills in a lot of the plot loops from LW&W. Really the concept of Satan (Jadis) and original sin are examined here. A good tandem with LW&W.

#4 is Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. It put it at 4 because really it is the quintessential Narnia novel. It doesn't really hit the highs of some books, but also isn't as much of a train wreck as some. I do think that it gets bogged down a bit at the beginning. The book doesn't pick up till halfway through, and Aslan doesn't show til near the last 1/3.

#5 The Last Battle is a tough one. It is very dark. We witness the destruction of Narnia, the betrayal of Susan, and even the "Happy" ending involves our main characters all dying in a train crash. Morbid.

#6 The Silver Chair. Really a quest with not much of a payoff in the end. The Green Witch is defeated and yet there is still a story about Bism and the odd bit about Caspian scaring a bunch of bullies in the end. Also suffers from the lack of the Pevensie children.

#7 Prince Caspian, although not even the High King Peter could save this one. Half this story is told in flashback which bogs the whole story in plot exposition. The we get the whole rehash of no one believing Lucy and Aslan again. Really? Figure they'd have learned their lesson by now.

Sorry, but completely disagree.

1. The Horse and His Boy

2. The Magician's Nephew

3. The Silver Chair

4. Prince Caspian

5. The Voyage

6. The Last Battle

7. The Lion

It complains that 'The Horse and his Boy' Takes place mainly out of Narnia, yet Voyage of the Dawn treader (my favorite and number two on this list)never goes to mainland Narnia at all. This is not mentioned, possibly out of a desire to enforce an opinion by manipulating facts to fit only to ones point.

Just finished the series good, bad I enjoyed it because it had it all. But to rank the books in terms of enjoyment and insight I would go with:

1. Book 3 The lion witch and the Wardrobe (Best)

2. Book 7 Last Battle (Excellent action)

3. Book 5 Voyage of the Dawn Treader (The movie helps

its an adventure into the unknown)

4. Book 4 Prince Caspian (Ties into book 5 because of

2nd movie)

5. Book 1 The Magician's Nephew (Gets the whole party

started Good but not great)

6. Book 6 The Silver Chair (It really is kind of

confusing)

7. Book 3 The Horse and his Boy (I agree its unrelated

to the series, and brings you down, a little

depressing)

Overall its not Lord of the Rings, but it is a good set to enjoy. It takes place in a separate universe, but it is a world with passages into our universe. I like that, imagination with a doorway into our lives.

I liked all the books the same amount! But if I had to choose, my favourite would have to be The Last Battle. It was moving & I think it was the only time I've cried over a book.

I keep thinking I'm missing something with The Silver Chair, I also don't care much for The Boy and his Horse. The lion Witch Roderobe, Magicians Nephew, Voge Dawn Treader and Last Battle all fit nicely together, Prince Carpacian not so much.

I think we all have different favourites for different reasons. My favourite is actually the Magician's Nephew I think. It's too close to call between five of the others, and they're only marginally behind first place, but I could quite happily leave out The Silver Chair - it's barely Narnian at all. I love The Horse and His Boy, and it actually does feel Narnian to me, because Narnia is always talked about, strived for and is the ultimate goal of the heroes; in that way, Narnia is always tantalisingly close, just beyond the horizon.

Actually, for me, it's quite impossible to split the books up into their constituent parts, because they are, essentially, one book. That's just how I see them.

Linda.

Read my hub on Narnia if you fancy it :) If you don't want to, that's alright.

https://hubpages.com/literature/Returning-to-Narni

Best to worst IMO

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

The Silver Chair

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Magicain's Nephew

The Last Battle

Prince Caspian

The Horse and His Boy

On the Silver Chair, it is another which, not the same white which from The Lion, the Which and the Wardrobe. And the giants came from the wild lands lands of the north, mentioned in a couple of books, one of them being The Magician's Nephew. I think you kinda put them in order of relevance, and which one made things clearer.

Good article. It's funny, The Horse and His Boy is my favorite. I've read this series to children for 30 years. Prince Caspian has always been my least favorite. I appreciate your insight and reasoning. I too wish the movies would be truer to the books. I don't mind cosmetic changes, but when they change the character of the person, as they did with Peter in Prince Caspian, It changes the meaning that Lewis intended.

I loved all of them, but my favorite is 'The Final Battle' followed by 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' and 'The Magician's Nephew'. I loved the details about the end of the world in 'The Final Battle' and 'creation' in 'The Magician's Nephew'. I wish the movies were more true to the books.

I found the Silver Chair to be the worst book in that series and The Horse and His Boy as the best. Seems we have different opinions.

they skipped the horse and his boy because they wanted to make the movies in the order that CS Lewis wrote the books. that's also why they skipped the magicians nephew.