C. Lewis - The Space Trilogy

OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET

PERELANDRA

THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH

by C. S. Lewis

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Out of the Silent Planet first published 1938 by John Lowe (The Bodley Head) Ltd. Perelandra first published 1943 by John Lowe (The Bodley Head) Ltd. That Hideous Strength first published 1945 by John Lowe (The Bodley Head) Ltd.

Copyright © 1938, 1943, 1945 C. S. Lewis Pte Ltd.

Foreword & Afterword excerpted from The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien copyright © 1981 The J.R.R. Tolkien Copyright Trust

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2013

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007528417

Ebook Edition © October 2013 ISBN: 9780007530335

Version: 2018-07-30

Cover

Title Page THE SPACE TRILOGY OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET PERELANDRA THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH by C. S. Lewis

Copyright Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk Out of the Silent Planet first published 1938 by John Lowe (The Bodley Head) Ltd. Perelandra first published 1943 by John Lowe (The Bodley Head) Ltd. That Hideous Strength first published 1945 by John Lowe (The Bodley Head) Ltd. Copyright © 1938, 1943, 1945 C. S. Lewis Pte Ltd. Foreword & Afterword excerpted from The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien copyright © 1981 The J.R.R. Tolkien Copyright Trust Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2013 A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication Source ISBN: 9780007528417 Ebook Edition © October 2013 ISBN: 9780007530335 Version: 2018-07-30

Foreword

OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET

Dedication TO MY BROTHER W.H.L. A lifelong critic of the space-and-time story

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Postscript

PERELANDRA

Dedication TO SOME LADIES AT WANTAGE

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THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH

Dedication Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

Preface

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Afterword

About the publisher

Mr C. S. Lewis tells me that you have allowed him to submit to you ‘Out of the Silent Planet’. I read it, of course; and I have since heard it pass a rather different test: that of being read aloud to our local club (which goes in for reading things short and long aloud). It proved an exciting serial, and was highly approved. But of course we are all rather like-minded.

It is only by an odd accident that the hero is a philologist (one point in which he resembles me) ... We originally meant each to write an excursionary ‘thriller’: a space-journey [his] and a time-journey (mine) each discovering Myth. But the space-journey has been finished and owing to my slowness and uncertainty the time-journey remains only a fragment, as you know. [*]

I read this story in the original manuscript and was so enthralled that I could do nothing until I had finished it. My first criticism was simply that it was too short. I still think that criticism holds ... But the linguistic inventions and the philology on the whole are more than good enough. All the part about language and poetry – the glimpses of its Malacandrian nature and form – is very well done, and extremely interesting, far superior to what one usually gets from travellers in untravelled regions. The language difficulty is usually slid over or fudged: here it not only has verisimilitude but also underlying thought.

I realize of course that to be even moderately marketable such a story must pass muster on its surface value, as a vera historia of a journey to a strange land. I am extremely fond of the genre ... I thought Out of the Silent Planet did pass this test very successfully. The openings and the actual mode of transportation in time or space are always the weakest points of such tales. They are well enough worked here ... But I should have said that the story had for the more intelligent reader a great number of philosophical and mythical implications that enormously enhanced without detracting from the surface ‘adventure’. I found the blend of vera historia with mythos irresistible. There are of course certain satirical elements, inevitable in any such traveller’s tale, and also a spice of satire on other superficially similar works of ‘scientific’ fiction – such as the reference to the notion that higher intelligence will inevitably be combined with ruthlessness. The underlying myth is of course that of the Fall of Angels (and the fall of man on this our silent planet) ...