Who Drew Narnia (CSLM-42)

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Who illustrated The Chronicles of Narnia and how was the person selected?

If you love the stories about Narnia, you probably also greatly admire the illustrations found in the books. Pauline Baynes is the only one who drew them and we have J.R.R. Tolkien to thank in part for them. It was after Lewis saw the pictures she created for Farmer Giles,  one of Tolkien’s books, that Lewis picked her.

However, she almost didn’t do any work for Tolkien had he not complained about the pictures done by another illustrator for his book. What Baynes drew was more to his liking and of course good enough to impress to C.S. Lewis. The original Narnia illustrations were done in black and white, but in 1998 she was commissioned to do color versions of them.

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