Capitalization of Narnian Chapters
Posted: Apr 17, 2020 6:43 pm
I was looking at my sister’s Narnia set last week and I noticed something a bit odd. She has a set of the Chronicles published in 2015 by HarperCollins. Hers was printed and bound in the UK and ordered chronologically. The covers have art by Pauline Baynes, but her illustrations are uniquely arranged. Her set can be found on Amazon here here. The set that I own is published in the United States, ordered chronologically, and distributed by HarperCollins as well. The cover art is not by Pauline Baynes. My set can be found here.
I noticed that the capitalization of the chapters in my sister’s set of books is quite odd. For example, the chapters of LWW read as follows:
Lucy looks into a wardrobe
What Lucy found there
Edmund and the wardrobe
Turkish Delight
Back on this side of the door
Into the forest
A day with the Beavers
What happened after dinner
In the Witch’s House
The spell begins to break
Aslan is nearer
Peter’s first battle
Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time
The triumph of the Witch
Deeper Magic from before the Dawn of Time
What happened to the statues
The hunting of the White Stag
I’ve never seen chapters in a Narnia book titled like this. The books in my set have all the major words capitalized like the title of a book (Lucy Looks into a Wardrobe, What Lucy Found There, etc.). The capitalization of my sister’s set does not at all seem to me to be consistent, especially given that her copy of HHB contains chapter titles that do have all of their major words capitalized in the table of contents (How Shasta Set Out on His Travels, Shasta Falls In With the Narnians, etc.). It seemed strange to me that HHB was the only book in the entire box set to have this type of capitalization...and then I looked at the header of pages where the chapter titles are listed throughout the book. They were printed in a lowercase format (How Shasta set out on his travels, Shasta falls in with the Narnians, etc.)! Oh, well, I suppose it was a typography error, though an odd one to be sure.
I hope that this all makes sense. Forgive me if I’m splitting hairs or making a big deal out of nothing, but I personally find this fascinating and would be interested to know if anyone else has seen the chapters capitalized in this way.
I noticed that the capitalization of the chapters in my sister’s set of books is quite odd. For example, the chapters of LWW read as follows:
Lucy looks into a wardrobe
What Lucy found there
Edmund and the wardrobe
Turkish Delight
Back on this side of the door
Into the forest
A day with the Beavers
What happened after dinner
In the Witch’s House
The spell begins to break
Aslan is nearer
Peter’s first battle
Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time
The triumph of the Witch
Deeper Magic from before the Dawn of Time
What happened to the statues
The hunting of the White Stag
I’ve never seen chapters in a Narnia book titled like this. The books in my set have all the major words capitalized like the title of a book (Lucy Looks into a Wardrobe, What Lucy Found There, etc.). The capitalization of my sister’s set does not at all seem to me to be consistent, especially given that her copy of HHB contains chapter titles that do have all of their major words capitalized in the table of contents (How Shasta Set Out on His Travels, Shasta Falls In With the Narnians, etc.). It seemed strange to me that HHB was the only book in the entire box set to have this type of capitalization...and then I looked at the header of pages where the chapter titles are listed throughout the book. They were printed in a lowercase format (How Shasta set out on his travels, Shasta falls in with the Narnians, etc.)! Oh, well, I suppose it was a typography error, though an odd one to be sure.
I hope that this all makes sense. Forgive me if I’m splitting hairs or making a big deal out of nothing, but I personally find this fascinating and would be interested to know if anyone else has seen the chapters capitalized in this way.