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Gold on the Horizon
A literary journey through Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Jem Bloomfield
Hardback |288 pp |198 x 126 mm
'Pretty well nobody has read all that C. S. Lewis read, and so pretty well everybody will have missed all kinds of echoes and allusions in the Narnia books. Jem Bloomfield continues his journey through the series, opening up the rich hinterland of Lewis's wonderful imagination with enthusiasm and an impressively wide familiarity with Lewis's inner world, from the Classics to the school stories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A real delight, and full of illumination.'
‘Gold on the Horizon is a compelling exploration of C. S. Lewis’s Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as novels burdened with the weight of the past; Jem Bloomfield skilfully shows how Lewis’s fiction reflected and refracted troubling questions in 20th-century history and archaeology.’
‘Following his refreshing study Paths in the Snow (2023), in which he discussed literary, cultural and theological references in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Jem Bloomfield’s new book Gold on the Horizon turns the focus on Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Citing influences as diverse as the Sutton Hoo ship burial, and H. Rider Haggard’s novel King Solomon’s Mines, he investigates Lewis’s focus on the deep past in Prince Caspian; while in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader he discovers traces of the Odyssey, the Grail legends, and the hope of a New Elizabethan Age inspired by the coronation of young Queen Elizabeth in 1952. As ever, Bloomfield is never less than thoughtful and thought-provoking, and this latest work is bound to fascinate fans of Narnia.’
** This title is available for pre-order and will be released on December 12th **
Gold on the Horizon is an enthralling companion for readers revisiting C. S. Lewis’s classic Narnia tales Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. With fascinating detail and bewitching diversion, it maps these two novels’ myriad literary influences and cultural allusions to enhance our understanding of their deeper meanings and themes.
Drawing on diverse sources from Hamlet to King Solomon’s Mines, and from The Odyssey to Tom Brown’s School Days, Jem Bloomfield is our guide on the Pevensie children’s memorable journeys as we venture into the second and third books Lewis wrote in the Chronicles of Narnia series. His fascinating commentary explores both literary connections and the social and cultural world of mid-century Britain. Discover how Eustace Scrubb and his family were based on a contemporary social stereotype also pilloried by Agatha Christie and George Orwell. Trace how Lucy Pevensie’s character was shaped by the “New Elizabethanism” movement of the 1950s, which also involved Benjamin Britten and Nigel Molesworth.
Gold on the Horizon follows on from Bloomfield’s earlier book Paths in the Snow: A Literary Journey through The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, taking his literary and theological approach into new realms of adventure.
