1958 1stED 4th printing - Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, CS Lewis

Author: C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes.
Title: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. A Story for Children.
Publisher: London: Geoffrey Bles, 1958. Fourth Impression of the First Edition.
Language: Text in English. 
Size: 8 x 5.5 inches.
Pages: 173 pages.
Binding: Good to very good original publisher’s light blue cloth binding, with gilt titles to the spine. Some toning, spotting, and light mottling to the cloth, especially to the spine and boards, as shown.
Dust Jacket: Good to very good original illustrated dust jacket, price unclipped at 10s 6d net. The jacket shows toning, spotting, edgewear, small chips, and closed tears, including wear to the spine ends and corners, as shown. Rear panel with small ink check marks beside listed Narnia titles. Preserved in a protective removable mylar cover.
Content: Good to very good content. Gift note of a previous owner on the first endpaper, dated 14 February 1961. Light foxing to endpapers, preliminaries, and page edges; otherwise the text block remains clean and sound.
Illustrations: Complete with Pauline Baynes’s colour frontispiece and numerous black-and-white illustrations throughout.

The book: A very attractive fourth impression of the first edition of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the beloved opening volume of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. First published in 1950, this early Geoffrey Bles printing preserves the classic original format, with Pauline Baynes’s enchanting illustrations and the celebrated dust jacket design. The story of Lucy, Peter, Susan, Edmund, Aslan, and the world beyond the wardrobe remains one of the defining works of twentieth-century children’s fantasy.

The author: C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) was an Irish-born scholar, novelist, and Christian apologist, best known for The Chronicles of Narnia, as well as works such as The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, and The Space Trilogy. His Narnia books have become enduring classics of children’s literature, admired for their imaginative power, moral depth, and mythic atmosphere.

The illustrator: Pauline Baynes (1922–2008) was a British illustrator whose delicate line work became inseparably associated with Narnia. Her illustrations for C. S. Lewis’s series helped define the visual world of Narnia for generations of readers.