) but I'll readily admit that it's my least favorite title in the series. A while back I was reading an excerpt from Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis by George Sayer, and in describing the history of LWW's sequel, the biographer says that Lewis wasn't particularly fond of the title either:[Lewis] put the [first draft of The Magician's Nephew] aside, thinking that he might later rework it, and instead began to write a story about children drawn across space and time by magic and told from their point of view, rather than from that of the magician. The theme is described by the original title, Drawn into Narnia. The writing went quickly and well, so that it was finished by the end of 1949 and eventually published as Prince Caspian.
The title adopted, Prince Caspian, was suggested by his publisher. Jack was reluctant to accept it, as it did not in any way suggest the theme of the book. But he had to be content with a subtitle, The Return to Narnia.
Do you think Prince Caspian is a fitting title for the novel, or is there something else that would have worked better? Is the subtitle needed? What about the alternate titles Drawn into Narnia or A Horn in Narnia?
I imagine that fellow Inkling J.R.R. Tolkien had already called dibs on it by the time Lewis was writing the sequel, but — though it may be a little too sweeping and epic to follow The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — I think The Return of the King, or something that conveys the same meaning, might have been an intriguing title. Is the titular king the young Caspian, meant to take back the throne from his Uncle? Or is it High King Peter, come back to Narnia out of the ancient past? No, it's Aslan the Great Lion, King of the wood, who has returned in a blaze of glory to wake the trees and bring back the old days of the Narnian kingdom!
So that comes to mind. The only other idea at present is The Prince and the Poplars.
Any thoughts or ideas?
