Beyond the Wardrobe: The Official Guide to Narnia

I picked up a very similar looking book to this a while back, which was simply awful - really, all it was was just a bunch of generic still shots from the Disney movie with some limited and uninteresting text.
This is NOT that same book!
In fact I only picked this one up by accident at the same bookstore a few weeks later just to remind myself of how disappointed I was with it. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this was a totally different presentation - by far!

True, there are approximately 30 colour stills taken from the Disney movie, and strikingly none at all from the landmark 1988-89 BBC television series - one would have to assume because one of the Disney film's producers was also the editorial consultant on this book; show more but, that is out of more than 100 illustrations and photos in total, made up largely from private photos of the Lewis family from around the 1900s onwards, Book covers of first editions; most interestingly - photos of various landmarks and views which inspired Lewis to write about Narnia, some maps and charts, dozens of vintage hand drawn illustrations and even a two page time-line comparing Earth time with Narnia time (from when Aslan sung Narnia into existence through to the Last Battle between the Calormene and the Narnians and where Aslan ushers in the end of Narnia).

This book is exactly what I was looking for and I have to say that, as a fan of the books since the age of six, I consider this to be a worthy addition to my library.

A guide to the titles on the contents page are:

Entering the Wardrobe

The Tale-teller's Secrets

The Great Tale

The Magic Lands of Narnia

Getting There...and Back

Narnia's Royal Visitors

The People and Creatures of Narnia

The Story Continues

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For Narnia fans, here's a nice addition to your collection. Much of the illustrations are taken from the movie but it includes a lot of Narnia trivia, many of which I didn't know and found fascinating.

We picked this up on MV Doulos on it's last trip to Manila.

Meh. It tried to please everybody.