Boxen

by C.S. Lewis (Artist)

A collection of maps, histories, sketches, and stories created by C.S. Lewis as a child to describe his private fantasy world, known as Animal-Land or Boxen. A scholarly introduction explains the stories in the context of Lewis's life.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Classics, Childrens, Short Stories, Juvenile, Christian

368 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1985

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Clive Staples Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954. He was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.

Lewis was married to poet Joy Davidman.
W.H. Lewis was his elder brother]

Reviews

[Cori · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, I don't know whether to be monumentally irritated or give this guy a standing ovation.

Boxen is one of the more unique books you can read from C.S. Lewis. Which is saying something. It's riddled with spelling errors, poor sentence structure, and it's downright boring...until you realize it was written between 1906 and 1912 which would put him starting on these stories about the age of 8. Suddenly, it's mindblowing.

Jack (Clive Staples Lewis) and his brother, Warnie, used to play in the attic, creating stories inspired by Beatrix Potter's world of Peter Rabbit & Co. He said that he was captivated by a world where animals wore clothes and lived like people- which is pretty cool to know when you take Narnia into the grand picture. His childhood fascinations came to life even in his adult writing career.

Here's my irritation: what eight year old child has a solid grasp of economics, politics, naval history and vernacular, and geography? Apparently Lewis did! This teensy kid had a firmer grasp of some difficult concepts than I ever will. One of the first books by Lewis I read this year was Surprised by Joy, and in it, Lewis described a tenuous (at best) relationship with his stern father. Knowing some of the things he endured (like being forced to sit through long, adult conversations about politics and finance), it's interesting to realize he was imitating life through his art, even at that age. So maybe, all things considered, I'm not so jealous. After all, he was already learning French AND Latin. No big deal. In addition, there's a particularly stern character in his little animal world of Boxen. It doesn't take much stretch of the imagination to realize that this was a reflection of his father.

It's cute to see his child's mind at work, throwing ridiculously large words into his writing, some incorrectly, but a shocking amount correctly (really, there's never a good reason to drop the word "ejaculated" into a sentence to describe the way someone is speaking, but we'll give the 8 year old a pass for using a 5 syllable word). Also, he wrote a whole mini "comedy" about a "hussy" living with someone out of wedlock and the bear being blackmailed for money to hide the clandestine relationship...WHAT?! What kind of dinner parties was this poor child subjected to?

The other thing that's fascinating to see are the pictures and snippets of his handwritten pages scattered throughout this book- drawings of frogs and bears in suits, naval ships, maps, and diagrams. Apparently, these are scans from the actual notebooks that were saved from a fire (Warnie apparently tried to burn all of Jack's handwritten work in a barrel in the backyard after Jack died many years later- Jack's step-son managed to save a fair amount of his work, although there are pages occasionally missing from the stories).

Would I recommend this to people to read? No. Definitely not. The stories just aren't good in terms of engaging literature- unless you are all about reading every piece of his work. Do I regret slogging through it? Not at all. But that's largely due to my 2020 goal to read through all of his work.

I'd rate this a PG. For the hussy. Also the occasional use of "d---" (not being prudish- that's how he wrote it).

[The Book Queen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This, my friends, is my favourite childhood book. If one day I somehow become famous and end up on Desert Island Discs, this is the book I'd take with me to a desert island. It holds such a special place in my heart I can't possibly review it objectively, so I'm not even going to try, but just take my word for it - it's fantastic.

[clumsyplankton · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s an okay book not amazing not bad just kind of there.

[Alissa J. Zavalianos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boxen is quite the collection of stories. The reason for the three stars instead of the expected five is due to the fact that this book reads more like a political treatise than anything. I don’t mean politics like today’s politics, rather, Jack and his brother Warnie created a whole new world, Animal-land and Boxen, where their politics are very intricate and detailed, almost to the point where it goes over my head.

I am immensely impressed that two boys, not yet in adulthood, came up with something this in depth and elaborate. Though to be honest, I wasn't the biggest fan of all the politics and steamships and elements of war simply because I didn't find it interesting.

But as I kept reading, I grew to appreciate the characters and their plights, amazed at their developments and relatability written by boys so young.

Do I think this book is worth the read? Without a doubt! Is it captivating enough to hold my interest? Not fully. If I wasn't really focused on what I was reading, it was very easy to get lost. So if you're wanting to give this a go, just be prepared to learn and give your fullest attention.

[Wreade1872 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I question the merit of reading any authors juvenilia. I'm also not the biggest Lewis fan, so with that context... i hated it.
The background piece is ok except it keeps referring to Surprised by Joy, so if you like this part it just makes you want to read that book instead.
The tales themselves all involved animal people, but arn't actually kids stories by any modern definition. The first is a weird little shakespeare play but it was ok. The main bulk of the stories however consist of a politic drama... its soooooo... boring! I spent most of the time trying to figure out if he was going for satire, or which characters i was supposed to like, or whether it was racist... or maybe anti-racist., or which bits of british history or fiction he was ripping off. However the only conclusion i arrived at was that i desperately wanted it to end :P .
The final 2 stories are an improvement, they're about reforming manners in the navy... wow.. it just keeps getting more exciting, (he said sarcastically). Actually though the final tale was quite acceptable and stopped me considering 1 star.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are stories written by C.S. Lewis and his brother Warnie in their youth. They made up an entire world of characters (mostly animals) and a whole history to go with it. You can see where the ideas for Narnia came from. It is hysterical to read the dialogue of the characters especially, since it couldn't be more British. You can practically hear them mumbling away. Much of Lewis' style of speaking a writing can be seen emerging in these stories. Although some are quite convoluded as far as figuring out what is going on, you can definitely see patterns emerging that show up in his religious writings later. All the politics and existential discussion is previewed here long before the "Four Loves". A great read for the C.S. Lewis fan.

[RE de Leon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was written by an eight year old. Literally. Put that into consideration, and the book is remarkable! After all, the eight year old in question is CS Lewis. Still, pretty much the only reason you should get this book is if you're a big Lewis fan and want to explore the evolution of his writing. In which case, this book should take you all the way to the start, to Little Lea and The little end room. Happy reading! :D

RE de Leon
Agoo La Union
10:07 PM
January 4, 2011

[Vasso Chatzimanoli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Πρόκειται για διηγήματα κ θεατρικά έργα γραμμένα από τον Κ. Σ. Λιούις κ τον αδερφό του όταν ήταν παιδιά...Αν κ λίγο βαρετά είναι εξαιρετικά δομημένα και γεματα από πολιτικές κ όχι μόνο γνώσεις που δεν θα περίμενες ποτέ από παιδιά 8 κ 10 χρόνων! Άξιζε η ανάγνωσή τους γιατί σου δείχνει πόσα μπορεί να κάνει η φαντασία του παιδικού μυαλού...Να προσθέσω εδώ ότι ο κόσμος του Boxen αποτελείται από ομιλούντα ζώα κ ανθρώπους κ αποτελεί την απαρχή της ιδέας για τη δημιουργία της Νάρνια και τα σκίτσα που το διακοσμούν (επίσης φτιαγμένα από τα 2 παιδιά) αριστοτεχνικά!

[Josh]

Not something that makes sense to score with a number rating.

These are the surviving pages of C.S. Lewis's earliest writings. The vocabulary and output are incredibly impressive for a child who started writing at age nine, but the writing is more interesting as a window into Lewis's creative development than anything else.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I confess that I did not particularly enjoy the content of these stories (primarily politics, with a few seafaring adventures tossed in) but I am absolutely amazed by what Lewis produced as an 8-year-old. His use of language was incredible and the tone and subject matter far more mature than would be expected. I was particularly struck by the nuanced characterization of of all the inhabitants of his world. There were few discernible "good guys" and "bad guys"--instead, flawed (and often ridiculous) characters whose desires and motivations set themselves against each other.

Worth a read for anyone who loves Lewis--not for the stories themselves, but for the glimpse they give us into his childhood.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't finish this. Enjoyed the intro and the encyclopedia at the end that described the process of the creation of this world but not so much the stories within it.
Much more sophisticated than any fantasy world I ever created as a kid but not that interested in political plotlines and found it difficult to follow all the characters.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ohh what a character :) As far as well-written books go, this doesn't make the cut. However, being able to see how brilliant and adorably talented Lewis was as a child made this book fascinating. His drawings alone are fantastic! From the perspective of an aunt who loves to babysit I can only say he and his brother must have been quite the handful :)

[Lori Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't really READ the book, per se, but perused it to see what the minds of the very young Lewis boys were like. I was impressed with the depth of their imaginations and their art at the ages of 8 to about 11.

The stories themselves didn't do much for me, but I very much appreciated what they were. Kind of like looking at certain art in the museum -- loved the work that went into it and the history behind it, but wouldn't hang it on my wall.

It IS worth looking at, though, if you are a CS Lewis fan.

Lori Anderson

Lori Anderson:The Store
Pretty Things:The Blog
Facebook

[félon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m relieved to have got through this book, it felt never-ending at times but once I started I was determined to finish it.

The fact it was so hard-going and sort of a chore to get through was a problem. I just didn’t like it. However, for what it is - a collection of well thought out stories written by two boys for their own benefit (rather than with the intention of being published) - I found it all rather impressive. My lack of interest in the general topics and themes hugely skews my opinion.

Essentially, impressive for what it was, but not my thing.

(Initially opted not to rate it due to the nature of the entire thing (childhood writing product, likely not written with an audience in mind) but I changed my mind.)

[Madeline Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been wanting to read Boxen for a long time, to get inside Lewis's head and see what he was like as a kid, which is why I read (or at least read part of) Boxen. It is written in the style of a history book excepting a few stories which he wrote as plays. Lewis was amazingly meticulous in the writing of Boxen, filling in all the details of his little animal kingdom. He seems like a younger version of his friend, J. R. R. Tolkien.

While the stories are amusing, they are not terribly interesting. I got about half way through the book before I realized that I was forcing myself to read a dry FICTIONAL history textbook.

[A.E. Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautiful edition, with scans of a great deal of pictures and maps, many of which I enjoyed as much as, if not more than, the actual content. The stories themselves feel very much like a private conversation, well-told as they are (especially considering the age of the authors), they are very much about the procedure and pleasure of describing and storytelling, as much as they are about the land itself - you can feel the time passing by, almost, as you read. Some of the characters are delightful, some of the descriptions excellent. Much is mundane or confusing, but it's hardly the sort of book one could hold that against. Well worth a flick, even if you're not moved to read it all.

[Darrel Hofland · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was difficult to get into
but in the end the pieces came together.
I'm fascinated by the young mind of CS Lewis

I like the authenticity of leaving the spelling mistakes as they were...

CS Lewis has touched many a life through his words.
his imagination has moved many of us to a deeper understanding of faith and God and ourselves.

in the rainy days of Belfast in little lea jack and warnie were surrounded by books.
what a treasure for children growing up.
his writings began there.

pity these days on rainy days kids ate found playing video games... all the while their imagination remains inactive...

this book has inspired me to keep on writing and reading.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as The Chronicles of Narnia which is what I expected. Since this was his earlier work I guess the later series was an improvement! This was hard to follow. But since it was written by kids I liked that aspect - I wrote a series about my cat when I was younger.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit I didn't read every word of this book. I skimmed over some stories and read some completely. It is so interesting to see the writing of CS Lewis as a child. He was obviously very bright!

[Rebecca Earnest · Rating 2 out of 5]

i realize he started writing this story as a child but honestly the best i’ve got as far as a review is that it’s a story with characters and a plot. i didn’t particularly enjoy it, but it wasn’t the worst thing i’ve ever read. probably why it took me almost 2 years to finish once i’d started. 🤷‍♀️

[Ronnie]

To see the writtings and drawings of C.S Lewis and his brother and to learn their childhood history is amazing.

[Marley Butler · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was very interesting as an insight into Lewis' development of his mind and craft. Fascinating from that perspective, though from a pure reader's point of view...not so much.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odd book at first, but I enjoyed it.

[Laurel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very interesting read, and at the end of the book it gives some insights into CS Lewis's childhood - which heavily influenced the stories and explains their content to some extent.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who has read a great deal by and about C.S. Lewis, it is perhaps surprising that only now have I gotten to his earliest tales, that of the imaginary world of Boxen.  To be sure, I have read about Boxen, as many of the writings about C.S. Lewis' fiction and the author's own memoirs commented on his childhood imaginative fiction and the way that it prefigured in many ways the fiction that Lewis wrote as an adult.  Yet at the same time there is something odd about reading the material written by someone as a child.  Some people are embarrassed by their first attempts to write stories, but Lewis appears to have been moderately but not excessively proud of them, even serving as a curator of his works and ranking the various texts as part of an exercise in textual and historical (?) criticism regarding these works, and some that alas have not survived to our knowledge to the present-day.  At any rate, these are enjoyable works even if they are slight, and those who read them with a tolerant and indulgent eye and the memory of one's own juvenile literature will find much to smile about here.

This short book of around 200 pages is divided into various parts.  First, the editor introduces the material and discusses the surviving Boxen manuscripts and seeks to burnish his own credentials by claiming to have saved many of them from a posthumous burning of documents by Warnie Lewis.  After that the manuscripts are divided into two sections.  The first consists of various materials related to Animal-Land, including such fragments and stories and materials as:  "The King's Ring," "Manx Against Manx," "The Relief of Murry," "History Of Mouse-Land From Stone-Age To Bublish I," "History of Animal-Land," "The Chess Monograph," and "The Geography Of Animal-Land."  The rest of the stories, longer ones and somewhat more mature efforts, including "Boxen: or Scenes From Boxonian City Life," "The Locked Door and Than-kyu," and "The Sailor," followed by a discussion of the Encyclopedia Boxoniana by the amused and indulgent adult C.S. Lewis, who imagined the possibility of future people being interested in this juvenile body of work as he was, and careful to note various works as being "bad" and "good" with regards to their coherence with the Boxonian mythos as a whole, which the author admits to finding some pleasure in even as an adult.

And if C.S. Lewis could find pleasure in these works, we are certainly permitted to do so.  It is striking that the author's behavior with regards to his fictional world was not to ignore the parts that children usually find boring (like history and politics) but to fully clothe the realm with a fascinating and complex (and somewhat shambolic) political system as well as refreshing honesty about cliques and wars and their causes in matters of prestige and so on and so forth.  A lot of the stories center around a small group of people like a brave but somewhat pugnacious frog named Lord Big and a corrupt purser for a ship who seeks to thwart some reform efforts in the logistics system of the Boxen military.  By and large the stories are told with a high degree of verve and they are clearly material written by someone with a strong literary mind even as a child, and seem in many ways to be a sort of preparatory work for the Narnia universe, much more accomplished as it may be.  Although the stories are themselves not Lewis' most famous works, they are certainly the sort of works that can be enjoyed today as a send up of British imperialism and the way children view the follies of adult politics.

[Remy G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Douglas Gresham opens this collection of stories by C.S. Lewis and his brother Warren Hamilton, written when they were around eight to eleven years old, by mentioning that the brothers’ audiences were one another, ironically not written for children either, despite largely starring intelligent anthropomorphic animal characters, with standard humans seeming to be among them at times. The anthology opens with a play called The King’s Ring, focusing on the disappearance and retrieval of King Bunny’s ring. The stories move on afterward to the history of Animal-Land, beginning with the conquest by Chin of the territory and ending with descriptions of its various regions.

Then the anthology advances to its namesake novella Boxen, which opens with mention of bribery of various Members of Parliament, terminating with debate at Murry House. Following this is the story’s sequel The Locked Door, with a frog named Lord Big, or Little-Master, despising a green parrot politician called Polonius Green, and involving a declaration of war against people known as the Chess. Afterward comes a “sketch” called Thank-Kyu, which involves a few chapters at the Dragon Inn and the story’s eponymous harbor. In succession is a two-part story called The Sailor, which involves a bear named Bar and a cat called Cottle serving as seamen.

Next is a “fragment” known as Tararo, which opens with the namesake land boiling with sedition, and ends with the Little-Master retiring from politics to engage in private matters, the collection concluding with an encyclopedia of Boxen and a note from the editor about getting permission from the Lewis estate to publish the stories. All in all, it’s an interesting compilation from the young C.S. Lewis and his brother, with plenty of illustrations and the bonus of animal characters, but definitely feels fragmented and incomplete, sort of their equivalent of Tolkien’s The Silmarillion except not quite connected to Narnia, yet definitely demonstrates the intelligence for young boys of their time.

[Luka]

I don't think I will rate this because he was an actual child writing these but ngl,,, I kinda enjoyed myself more with these at times than with the later Narnia books. Except for the very politics-heavy ones. That poor child really had to sit through his father's and his friends' conservatism talks for hours; no wonder he abandoned politics for lion jesus. Anyways, I love that this exists just because of how fascinating it is to watch a child use what he hears and sees in the world around him creatively. I am also just immensely impressed with how good of a storyteller he's evidently always been. One of my favourite things in the Chronicles of Narnia was his narration style; it's literally the same her,,, just with less successful spelling attempts. Very entertaining. The world-building is so fun and rich; I love the encyclopedia and the history books because that's literally how I used to imagine and create things in my head as a child. I just never wrote it down because paper was expensive lol.
Anygays,,, this is exactly my brand and ik this was a private thing between them as brothers, but I would've loved to be their friend at that time and imagine Animaland and India with them.

[Joseph Hamm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the most difficult book from C. S. Lewis I’ve read so far, which is very interesting considering he started writing it when he was eight years old! He and his brother wrote all the imaginative stories found in here, and it’s incredible the amount of detail that were put into these stories considering the ages of the authors.

The stories themselves, as I alluded to, are VERY tough reads. They consist mainly of the fictional geographical and political landscape of the fantastical land of Boxen. Even though it’s very dense, it’s also really cute to see how imaginative the two bright, young minds who conjured this world were. The trademark humor of the younger Lewis is also found within several of these stories, foreshadowing his later works. I also found it so wholesome and hilarious how C. S. Lewis went back as an adult and attempted to write an “encyclopedia” explaining the world of Boxen as many of the stories are contradictory and he wanted to establish what is factual! It’s so nerdy, yet so wholesome!!

Overall, I find the story behind these writings more fascinating than the actual tales. The stories were never written to be published, but exist merely as windows into the adolescent years of “Jack” and Warnie” Lewis. It’s a cute little book and I enjoyed it!

[Josh Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

CS Lewis is my all time favorite author and when I discovered there was a collection of stories from a fantasy world he and his brother imagined as kids I HAD to read this! If it was anything like the imaginary world MY brother and I created, it means maybe there's hope for me be an author one day.
Well - Boxen is quite a bit different than I expected. On the one hand it is, even the earliest writing, still quite beyond what I could ever write. Pre-teen Lewis writes darn near a well as most adult writers. There are expected grammatical and spelling errors and I'm glad Hooper left them as is. But on the other hand, the stories are dry and a bit hard to follow (He came a long way to get to Narnia). Animal Land isn't quite as creative as I would have expected and really, every interaction here could easily been traded out for human beings and the land traded for a fictional, but exiting place on earth. I think he himself was later quoted as saying something along the lines of "Why write a story with mythical creatures and talking animals when the same story could be told with humans?"

[Raquel]

I didn't want to rate this because for a child, Jack Lewis wrote a whole world with his brother, and this was never meant to be published in the first place. Much of the text was tedious and detailed to go through, but the most comprehensible of the texts was "The Life of Lord Big of Bigham" which he modelled after himself: A frog man who was friends with Frederic Quicksteppe (probably modelled after his brother Warren, "Warnie").

There's an Encyclopedia Boxaniana, and some samples of maps, and a play, and the order of the stories and narratives are from rudimentary to more complex. Despite the tedium and boring details of politics, government and socialite life, with ships and parliaments and the "island of India", it was impressive to see that Jack Lewis was already a blossoming writer at that age.