My C. S. Lewis Complete Works Reading Plan (The Best Reading Order)
In 2026, I’m reading the complete works of C. S. Lewis, and this post is the exact plan I’ve concocted. If you want the best order to read Lewis (starting with Narnia, then moving through his apologetics and other major works), here’s my week-by-week reading list.
I’m also pairing the readings with a few scholarly companion books so I can understand his work more deeply as I go.
This page is incomplete. I’m making a lot of this up as I go, planning-wise, I mean, so there will be changes and updates made to this page as that occurs. For example, I know I’ll want to add more study guides and scholarly readings to this list as the year goes on. Don’t take it so seriously, especially the weeks, and feel free to offer me suggestions in the comments below.
The final section is a complete, chronological list of C. S. Lewis’s works, with publication dates for anyone interested.
I’m writing mini-essays as I go—nothing fancy, just a way to slow my brain down, notice patterns, and actually retain what I’m reading instead of letting it all blur together. At some point, I will come back to this post and perhaps add some of the essay topics and other notes I’ll have accumulated this year. As I’m also making 2026 the year I improve my cursive script, this will be a lovely way to practice writing.
I’ll also be documenting the whole project on Instagram so you can follow along under my hashtag: #YearOfCSLewis2026.
Why am I doing this?
I’m doing this as a classical homeschool mom who wants to keep learning alongside my children. I’m deeply influenced by many aspects of Charlotte Mason’s educational approach, which fits beautifully with much of classical homeschooling. I’m particularly inspired by her idea of “mother culture”: a mother continuing her own education through the great books, rich ideas, and disciplined attention.
Homeschooling has rekindled my love for academia, but in an autodidactical way, and this is one of the ways I’m living that out. This should also explain why I’m starting with his children’s literature, as my own children are currently obsessed and deeply immersed in the world he imagined for them.
That’s enough preamble, let’s get into it.
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The Narnia Chronicles (Starting Here)
These are so much more than children’s stories, and don’t call Narnia an allegory—it’s suppositional.
- Week 1: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
- Week 2: Prince Caspian
- Week 3: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
- Week 4: The Silver Chair
- Week 5: The Horse and His Boy
- Week 6: The Magician’s Nephew
- Week 7: The Last Battle
I own and highly recommend the HarperCollins Deluxe Chronicles of Narnia Hardcover Box Set with the original illustrations by Pauline Baynes.
If you have toddlers or young children, I also recommend two shorter (abridged) versions of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. You can read the full novel to young children (and we do), but it’s also quite lovely to have beautifully illustrated, shorter versions of these classics. The first (and my favorite) is illustrated by Christian Birmingham and the second by Tudor Humphries.
After I finish the series, I’m reading:
- Further Up & Further In: Understanding Narnia by Joseph Pearce
- Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Michael Ward
The Core Lewis (Where I’m Going Next)
Weeks 11–19
I’m starting here because these are the books that most directly introduce Lewis’s “adult voice” and the big themes that echo through everything else: temptation and spiritual warfare, the basic shape of Christianity, suffering, heaven and hell, moral formation, and (with Till We Have Faces) his most mature imaginative work outside of Narnia. This section is basically my foundation before I move into the longer fiction and the smaller essay collections.
- Week 11: The Screwtape Letters
- Week 12: Mere Christianity
- Week 13: The Great Divorce
- Week 14: The Problem of Pain
- Week 15: Miracles
- Week 16: The Abolition of Man
- Week 18:** The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses
- Week 18: Till We Have Faces
A great (and affordable) hardcover box set is also available for most of these on the list; you can get it at Amazon via that link.
- Week 17** (supplement for The Abolition of Man): After Humanity: A Guide to C. S. Lewis’s “The Abolition of Man” by Michael Ward.
The Space Trilogy (Lewis’s Science Fiction)
Weeks 20–22
The Space Trilogy is where his theology, his view of modernity, and his sense of spiritual reality all begin to appear in narrative form.
- Week 20: Out of the Silent Planet
- Week 21: Perelandra
- Week 22: That Hideous Strength
I recommend this deluxe hardcover version, which includes all three stories, and also includes an introduction by his good friend, the man who convinced him to leave atheism behind, J.R.R Tolkien
Supplemental Texts: I haven’t purchased anything—yet—but this free resource from the C.S Lew Institute delves into the subject matter: Series: The Space Trilogy.
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Prayer, Scripture, Love, and Grief
Weeks 23–26
These are the books where Lewis talks about prayer, Scripture, love, and grief. I know nothing about them, and I’m going in blindly.
- Week 23: Reflections on the Psalms
- Week 24: Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer
- Week 25: The Four Loves
- Week 26: A Grief Observed
Early Lewis: His Formative Writings
Weeks 27–29
Next, I want to see where Lewis started. These early works showcase his first experiments with imagination, poetry, and ideas, and offer a sense of how his thinking developed over time. Some of this was published when he was still an atheist.
- Week 27: The Pilgrim’s Regress
- Week 28: Spirits in Bondage
- Week 29: Dymer
- Week 30: The Allegory of Love
Essays, Addresses, and Shorter Works (Lewis Thinking Out Loud)
These are shorter pieces, lectures, and essays where he responds to culture, education, modern life, and the faith as he actually lived it.
- Week 31: Broadcast Talks
- Week 32: Transposition and Other Addresses
- Week 33: The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (if not already read earlier)
- Week 34: Rehabilitations and Other Essays
- Week 35: The World’s Last Night and Other Essays
- Week 36: They Asked for a Paper
- Week 37: God in the Dock
- Week 38: Present Concerns
- Week 39: Screwtape Proposes a Toast and Other Pieces
- Week 40: Fern-seed and Elephants and Other Essays on Christianity
- Week 41: Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories
- Week 42: The Dark Tower and Other Stories
Complete Chronological List of C. S. Lewis’s Works
- 1919 [Spirits in Bondage]
- 1926 [Dymer]
- 1933 [The Pilgrim’s Regress]
- 1936 [The Allegory of Love]
- 1938 [Out of the Silent Planet]
- 1940 [The Problem of Pain]
- 1942 [The Screwtape Letters]
- 1942 [The Case for Christianity]
- 1942 [Christian Behaviour]
- 1942 [Beyond Personality]
- 1943 [Perelandra]
- 1943 [The Abolition of Man]
- 1945 [That Hideous Strength]
- 1945 [The Great Divorce]
- 1945 [English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama]
- 1947 [Miracles]
- 1950 [The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe]
- 1951 [Prince Caspian]
- 1952 [The Voyage of the Dawn Treader]
- 1953 [The Silver Chair]
- 1954 [The Horse and His Boy]
- 1955 [The Magician’s Nephew]
- 1955 [Surprised by Joy]
- 1956 [The Last Battle]
- 1958 [Reflections on the Psalms]
- 1960 [The Four Loves]
- 1960 [Studies in Words]
- 1960 [The World’s Last Night and Other Essays]
- 1961 [A Grief Observed]
- 1961 [An Experiment in Criticism]
- 1962 [They Asked for a Paper]
- 1963 [Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer]
- 1961/1965 [Screwtape Proposes a Toast and Other Pieces]
- 1985 [Boxen: Childhood Chronicles Before Narnia]
- 1940s–1950s [Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories]
- 1977 [The Dark Tower and Other Stories]
Yes, it’s hard. You’re not alone.
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