Did you know? The first Magician's Nephew stopped mid-sentence
Before writing the book Greta Gerwig is now bringing to the screen, Lewis started a very different version of Digory's story, then gave it up after a few pages.
Soon after finishing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lewis wanted to explain where the lamp-post and the witch came from. He filled a few pages of a notebook, then set the idea aside. That draft, now known as the "Lefay Fragment", was published in 1979 by Walter Hooper in his book Past Watchful Dragons.
Digory and Polly are both there, but the story takes another road. Digory is a lonely boy who can secretly talk with trees and animals. To impress Polly, who is building a raft, he agrees to saw a limb off his friend the old oak. The next day the trees and creatures no longer answer him. Then his godmother arrives, the odd Mrs Lefay, who seems to know everything. The text breaks off just as she starts giving him her address.
Lewis reused several ideas: Pattertwig the squirrel turns up in Prince Caspian, and in the finished book Mrs Lefay becomes Uncle Andrew's fairy godmother, the one who leaves him the dust that makes the rings.
See also
Sources
- NarniaWeb, "The 8th Narnia Book C. S. Lewis Started Writing", Talking Beasts podcast episode, 19 June 2018.
- The Lion's Call, "The Lefay Fragment and Other Such Stuff", 19 May 2014.
- Narnia Wiki, "The Lefay Fragment", detailed summary (secondary source).
- Walter Hooper, Past Watchful Dragons: The Narnian Chronicles of C. S. Lewis, 1979 (print source).