Trivia / The Magician's Nephew

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Tilda Swinton, who played Jadis in the Walden Media film adaptations, said that she would be ecstatic about doing a film version of this book - just for the chance to explore Jadis's backstory.
• Development Hell: Lewis started writing the book after Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe... only to scrap his initial draft completely. He would continue working on and off for five years and only completed it after he'd finished every other Narnia book.
• Executive Meddling: It was only after Lewis's death that this was put as the first book in the series. While it is the first chronologically, it contains references to the future books and makes more sense when read in the order it was published (before The Last Battle).
• Out of Order: Chronologically, this book is the first of the series, taking place long before The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but it was the second-to-last to be written and published. As such, some editions, going by chronological order, label it as the first book, while others, following the publication order, label it as the sixth (out of seven). Arguably, it works better the latter way, since the reader will know the importance of everything they're seeing to later events (and given the sheer number of references, it seems quite possible that Lewis intended it to be read that way).
• Reality Subtext:
  • The illness of Digory's mother was heavily influenced by CS Lewis's own, who died of cancer. In some ways, the story is something of a Fix Fic since Digory is rewarded with a magic apple to heal her.
  • The Deplorable Word comes from Lewis's own fears about nuclear war.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original draft, the Lefay Fragment, had a very different story with Digory having the gift of understanding animals and tree with Mrs. Lefay as his Fairy Godmother. Digory lived with his nasty aunt and loses his abilities when he cuts off the branch of an oak tree to impress Polly.
  • After the film version of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Walden Media announced that this would be the next adaptation to come (rather than The Silver Chair - which is next chronologically). However, it was later announced that the series would end with Dawn Treader and no further adaptations would be produced.