Did you know? Before Narnia, Jack and Warnie were already inventing Boxen
Long before Aslan, the Lewis brothers were imagining a world of dressed animals, trains and mouse-knights.
As a child in Belfast, C. S. Lewis — nicknamed Jack — filled his stories with armoured mice and enemy cats, fed in particular by his reading of Beatrix Potter. His older brother Warnie preferred India, steamships and railways. The two boys joined their worlds to create Boxen.
Jack wrote its adventures, drew its maps and imagined its institutions. Long before Narnia, then, he was already practising giving an invented world a history and an everyday life. His childhood manuscripts were gathered by Walter Hooper in "Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis", published in 1985.
See also
- A picture book tells the story of young "Jack" Lewis, from Belfast to Narnia
- Lewis's grandfather's Belfast home could become a centre devoted to the author
- Did you know? The Bastable children make a surprise appearance in "The Magician's Nephew"
Sources
- CSLewis.com, "C. S. Lewis and his Mice".
- Wikipedia, "Boxen (C. S. Lewis)".
- Walter Hooper (ed.), Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis (1985).