The Horse and His Boy

The Horse and His Boy is a high fantasy novel written by the British author C. S. Lewis and published by Geoffrey Bles in 1954. Of the seven novels that make up The Chronicles of Narnia, published between 1950 and 1956, it was the fifth to appear.

The book is unusual in the series because its setting is inside the timeline of an earlier book. The action takes place during the period covered by the last chapter of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, while the four Pevensie children reign as kings and queens of Narnia, and three of them appear only as minor characters here. The central figures are two children and two talking horses escaping from Calormen.

Their journey north is the structure of the plot. On the way they learn that the prince of Calormen intends to attack Archenland, and they carry the warning to its king, which turns a story about escape into one about a military warning that has to arrive in time. Like the other novels in the series, it was illustrated by Pauline Baynes, and her illustrations have been retained in many later editions.