How C. S. Lewis Got the Idea for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

The Lion all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: ‘Let’s try to make a story about it.’

C. S. Lewis, “It All Began with a Picture” (Source: Wikipedia)

So, the story had its beginning in 1905, when Lewis was sixteen.

Later in 1939 a group of children came to stay in his home in the countryside near Oxford where he was a professor. It wa...