This blog is coming out a day earlier than usual, on Monday the 11th May 2026, to mark the exact anniversary, one hundred years ago, since Tolkien and Lewis first met. To celebrate the occasion I have chosen to look at the very different histories of the two authors famous children’s books with relation to the best known publisher of paperbacks aimed at this market, Puffin Books an imprint of Penguin Books. Although Lewis was the first of the two to appear in Puffin, for reasons that will soon become clear I’m going to start with Tolkien and Puffin Story Book PS161 published October 1961 with a lovely cover by Pauline Baynes which wraps round the whole book, but without most of the pictures from the Allen & Unwin hardback. The only image retained was the map and that was at the insistence of Tolkien who felt that it would be difficult to follow without its assistance, but the omission of most of the illustrations wasn’t to be the biggest problem with this publication.

Allen & Unwin didn’t have a paperback imprint of their own that that could publish Tolkien in the 1960’s but they were also worried about devaluing the brand as they were making good money selling Tolkien in hardback but after talking with the author they decided on a limited run of 35,000 copies to test the market for a paperback. Puffin duly published the book and as usual five copies were sent to the author requesting one to be signed and sent back for Sir Allen Lane’s personal collection, this Tolkien duly did, it was only a few months later that he noticed what would become a deal breaker. First I will show an early passage from the 1961 Puffin edition:

and now the same section from the 1966 Unwin paperback:

The original dwarves has become dwarfs, checking revealed dwarfish rather than dwarvish and elfish replaced elvish, Tolkien was not happy to say the least but it was too late to do anything about it. It appears that the printers, Cox and Wyman, had made the changes and quoted The Oxford English Dictionary as their authority, unfortunately for them Tolkien was Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University and had worked on the OED so he was even less impressed by this argument. Tolkien did not allow Puffin to reprint ‘The Hobbit’ or indeed publish any others of his works and Sir Allen Lane’s copy in the Penguin Archive in Bristol is believed to be the only signed example, as he would apparently refuse to sign any Puffin copies put before him. A lot of this I knew but for extra details, including the last bit regarding signed copies, or lack thereof I am indebted to the article by Jules Burt in Penguin Collectors Newsletter 100.

Now let’s move on to Lewis and his Narnia series of seven books, these were all published by Puffin although like Tolkien none of his other works were published by Penguin Books, but not because he refused publication, unlike Tolkien the Narnia books went through multiple reprints at Puffin. Pauline Baynes had illustrated the original hardbacks and provided new covers for the Puffin editions which also ties these books nicely to ‘The Hobbit’.

Oddly as can be seen from the lists below Puffin didn’t publish the Narnia books in order, the Puffin list first:

• PS132 – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – October 1959
• PS173 – Prince Caspian – April 1962
• PS192 – The Magician’s Nephew – June 1963
• PS205 – The Last Battle – January 1964
• PS229 – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – March 1965
• PS240 – The Silver Chair – June 1965
• PS244 – The Horse and His Boy – September 1965

Actual first publication sequence and probable correct reading order

• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – published by Geoffrey Bles 1950
• Prince Caspian – published by Geoffrey Bles 1951
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – published by Geoffrey Bles 1952
• The Silver Chair – published by Geoffrey Bles 1953
• The Horse and His Boy – published by Geoffrey Bles 1954
• The Magician’s Nephew – published by The Bodley Head 1955
• The Last Battle – published by The Bodley Head 1956

There is a good argument that ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ should be read first as it covers events well before any of the other books, also ‘The Horse and His Boy’ is actually set towards the end of ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. One thing is absolutely clear however and that is that ‘The Last Battle’ should not be read fourth as it is definitely the last book in the series.

Tolkien and Lewis were the ‘star’ members of a literary group called The Inklings who met regularly at The Eagle and Child public house in Oxford to discuss their ongoing works. Tolkien was rather dismissive of Lewis’s overly Christian allegorical novels, such as the Narnia series, as he didn’t regard them as serious literary works unlike his own output which he slaved over for years. But despite disagreements the two men remained friends for decades with Tolkien regularly visiting Lewis before his death in 1963. Tolkien survived him by ten years.

The Narnia books are now published by Harper Collins rather then Puffin, but still have the original, and iconic, Pauline Baynes illustrations inside them over seventy five years since they first appeared.